Overall, I’m not getting any reports of widespread problems in any crop, but there has been a smattering of several things including …

• Calls on armyworm in wheat have mostly dwindled as the wheat is rapidly approaching maturity. Treatment now should only be made if head clipping is occurring at a “substantial” rate, meaning more than 2% of heads and larvae are still present (my best guess at a threshold).
• I’m still getting calls about cutworm in corn and cotton. Pay special attention to fields that were not treated at or near planting with a pyrethroid insecticide. They have been unusually common across much of the Midsouth this year.
• I visited a sweet corn field in Hardeman County that had substantial sugarcane beetle damage, and it appeared they had been there for a while. This corn did not have an insecticide seed treatment, but even fields that do should be monitored closely. They really seem to like fields that were taken out of CRP, pasture or were fallow the year before.

  

This field has an even worse infestation of southern corn rootworm … the larval stage of the spotted cucumber beetle (pictured). I’ve not seen a serious problem with this pest since Poncho and Cruiser seed treatments saturated the corn market. They work very well on this pest.

Thrips:  Too little cotton is out of the ground for many thrips calls, but we need to start the scouting process for thrips. More on this next week.

Southwestern Corn Borer: We are putting up all of our moth traps this week. A few agents have already been running traps for SWCB. Jeff Lannom (Weakley County) reported anywhere from 0 – 16 moths per trap this week, with 16 and 13 in the Ralston and Ore Springs areas, respectively. Tim Campbell caught 15 this week at “Grills”. SWCB are off to an early and respectable start at a couple of locations. Given the warm winter, survival was probably higher than usual. More on this pest and using traps to assess the threat level next week.

Trap Catch of the Week – My counterpart In Arkansas, Dr. Gus Lorenz, had one trap in Lonoke that caught of 600 bollworm moths this week. Concerning!