David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu
Congratulations to Mark Tappan and the many others who correctly identified the corn leaf damage as that caused by stink bugs! As mentioned last week and this week, North Carolina and Virginia entomologists have been studying stink bug injury to corn and have adjusted thresholds DOWN. Early feeding signs include these elongate slits in leaves and holes with extremely jagged margins. This is from the stink bug inserting its needle mouth into the whorl. Cutworm feeding is going to look like a row of circular holes. Slug feeding tends to be more of a rasping and a windowpaning, not even.
