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Western Bean
Cutworm Monitoring Begins
By Sam Custer
OSU Extension, Darke County
No it is not a new high tech bluebird house you may have seen along a
Darke county roadway this week. Seven bucket traps have been
place around the county with the cooperation of our local farmers.
For the 7th straight year, OSU-Extension and OARDC personnel will be
trapping for western bean cutworm (WBC). This is a pest of only
corn and dry beans (note: NOT a pest of soybean), and has rapidly
expanded from its native range in Colorado and western Nebraska.
With the more recent cool weather, we expect adult flights to begin
sometime in mid-June. Monitoring WBC adult emergence is critical in
knowing when and where to scout for corn.
Our trap counts will be updated weekly on our Agronomic Crops Insects
website: http://entomology.osu.edu/ag/. Traps can be easily
constructed from milk jugs, or using commercial “bucket-traps.”
These traps use pheromone lures, which are relatively inexpensive
(lures cost about $2, and are good for about 4 weeks, so over the
course of 3 months, the total for lures is $6). Both traps and
lures can be purchased from Great Lakes IPM
(http://www.greatlakesipm.com/), and for more information see our WBC
fact sheet (http://ohioline.osu.edu/ent-fact/pdf/0040.pdf).
What do we expect to see this year? While Ohio has not yet seen
economic damage in corn from WBC, we have been able to find eggs and
larvae the past 2 years. Furthermore, our adult trap catches have
been relatively steady; suggesting that we still have the risk of
infestation. WBC prefer to lay eggs in corn that has not reached
tassel—any corn that hasn’t tasseled by peak flight (likely 2nd or 3rd
week of July, depending on temperatures) is at risk. At this
point, however, trapping and scouting remains our best option to
determine the impact of WBC.
Andy Michel, The Ohio State University, is the Ohio point person for
this project and works closely with educators and others around the
state to monitor the movement of the WBC.
For more detailed information, visit the Darke County OSU Extension web
site at www.darke.osu.edu, the OSU Extension Darke County Facebook page
or contact Sam Custer, at 937.548.5215.
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