Sweet Corn Insect Update

Bill Cissel, Extension Agent – Integrated Pest Management; bcissel@udel.edu and David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu and

A whorl-stage sweet corn field on station had an economic infestation of fall armyworms, whorl thresholds are 15%. Be wary of fall armyworm in tassel-push corn, worms dislodged by the emerging tassel may go to the developing ear. Pyrethroids will not give complete worm control, scout fields soon after treatment. Other alternative mode of actions that are softer on beneficials include diamides (Coragen) methoxyfenozide (Intrepid), indoxacarb (Avaunt) and spinetoram (Radiant). Be sure to read the labels for use restrictions (indoxacarb cannot be used after tassel-push) and restrictions on the number of applications. A commonly used earworm product is Besiege which has chlorantraniliprole (Coragen) in it; earlier use of chlorantraniliprole may limit later use.

Corn earworm populations are higher than last week. Drier evening weather favors moth flight, and worms that developed in field corn are starting to emerge as adults. I expect moth flight activity to continue increasing state-wide until early-September. You may notice some trap locations that had been catching a lot of moths are now catching fewer; in some locations traps were adjacent to sweet corn that has since been harvested. However, other traps have been catching many more moths than they had been, especially in the Monday Laurel data. Blacklight trap captures are also increasing. Focus more on the state-wide trends. Monday trap capture can be found at (http://agdev.anr.udel.edu/trap/trap.php), and Monday trap captures were much higher from nearly all sites. As a reminder, what is reported on the website is on a per night basis, the table below is cumulative over Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night.