The pyrethroid vial tests are still showing high levels of corn earworm survivorship. Thursday, Sean Malone will post the line graph including this week’s vial test totals, but as of now, we are still getting about 45% survivors. This is important to consider when selecting insecticides for ‘worm’ control in soybean fields. We are now beginning to see corn earworms feeding on young pods in some fields. In others, we are not finding any, or just a few. Each field is a separate case and each should be sampled to determine if earworms are present in numbers that warrant treatment. You can find earworms in many peanut fields, but as stated earlier—if you want to treat them, consider it to be recreational, not economic.

We have been sampling sorghum heads for worms this week in four different locations and all but one have levels worm levels that exceed the 1 worm/head threshold. Some samples reached 30-55 per 10 heads, way over threshold. Products labeled for worm control in sorghum are limited (at least all we could find) to Baythroid, Karate/Warrior, Lannate, Mustang Max or Blackhawk (the new Tracer). Of those, Lannate will give the quickest kill but has essentially no residual activity. But, residual activity should not be an issue. If worms are killed, heads will be matured beyond attractiveness before any additional worm infestations would occur. The pyrethroids should also do pretty well, unless pyrethroid resistance becomes an issue in sorghum and we are not sure about that. If spraying sorghum, only the heads need to be treated, not the foliage, so use a sprayer configuration/gallons/pressure that directs as much spray as possible to the heads. That is where the ‘action’ is.

Brown marmorated stink bug populations are still very slow to develop across the state, at least as best we can determine. Since last week, we have added three new counties where low numbers have been found in soybeans: Essex, Appomattox, and Louisa Counties. We are tracking these to see if treatments may be needed. Like last year, we are going to recommend and strongly encourage field edge treatments.

Kudzu bug encounters have slowed and we have added only one of two new counties, Suffolk for one. We are still only finding low numbers of adults and no eggs or nymphs. Hopefully we will not experience any outbreaks.