David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu
Sweet Corn
This will be the last sweet corn trapping post of the 2021 season. Many thanks to Richard Monaco for faithfully checking all of our traps Mondays and Thursdays, rain or shine, holiday or no, as well as to Joseph Deidesheimer for entering and processing data! Thanks also to USDA-NIFA CPPM program for funding the trapping network (grant number 2017-70006-27286) as well as Mark VanGessel and Bill Cissel for securing funding.
Earworm counts continue to be fairly high, especially in Kent County. Please note we do not move our traps around, and sweet corn is highly attractive to moths. There are a couple of locations that had low pheromone trap counts that I still advise maintaining a three-day spray schedule. Blacklight trap catches also support maintaining a 3 day spray schedule (see https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/canr/cooperative-extension/sustainable-production/pest-management/insect-trapping/silk-stage-sweet-corn/). Moth counts from Thursday are as follows:
| Trap Location | BLT – CEW | Pheromone CEW |
| 3 nights total catch | ||
| Dover | 3 | 193 |
| Harrington | 4 | 55 |
| Milford | 13 | 73 |
| Rising Sun | 3 | 105 |
| Wyoming | 1 | 61 |
| Bridgeville | 4 | 37 |
| Concord | 3 | 12 |
| Georgetown | 2 | 45 |
| Greenwood | 1 | 57 |
| Laurel | 3 | 76 |
| Seaford | 3 | — |
| Millsboro | 3 | 1 |