Western Bean Cutworm moths in area

Work­shop: OSU Exten­sion is offer­ing a work­shop from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fri­day, July 20, titled “The Woods In Your Backyard.”

This one-day work­shop is for those landown­ers who have a small sec­tion of woods out back that they want to learn more about. Learn which trees and shrubs are ‘good’ and what they are good for, how to attract wildlife, improve the health of the trees, deal with inva­sive species and more. Part of this pro­gram will be out­side so atten­dees will have a hands-on learn­ing time.

This pro­gram will be held at Deer Haven Pre­serve on Lib­erty Road. For more infor­ma­tion or to reg­is­ter, please call our office at 740–833-2030. The dead­line for reg­is­tra­tion is July 13.

West­ern Bean Cut­worm moths: West­ern Bean Cut­worm moths are already being caught in 2012. For the sixth straight year, OSU-Extension and OARDC 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 its native range in Col­orado and west­ern Nebraska across the east­ern Great Lakes. Here in Delaware County, our trap­ping began by June 15 in the past but with the impact the warm spring has had in caus­ing most insects to emerge early, we antic­i­pate WBC to begin flight early as well. Traps were placed today, Fri­day, and we will be mon­i­tor­ing closely the WBC adult emer­gence. This is crit­i­cal in know­ing when and where to scout for corn.

Our trap counts will be updated weekly on our Agro­nomic Crops Insects web­site, entomology.osu.edu/ag. If you are inter­ested in doing some of your own trap­ping, 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 four weeks, so over the course of four months, the total for lures is $8. Both traps and lures can be pur­chased from Great Lakes IPM (greatlakesipm.com). For more infor­ma­tion, see our WBC fact sheet at ohioline.osu.edu/ent-fact/pdf/0040.pdf.

What do we expect to see this year? Accord­ing to Ron Ham­mond, OSU Exten­sion specialist/Entomology, while Ohio has not yet seen eco­nomic dam­age in corn from WBC, Michi­gan and Ontario reported heavy dam­age last year. Our total counts increased last year, and we have noticed egg depo­si­tion in north­west Ohio for the past two years, so there is risk of dam­age from WBC. How­ever, the good start to the plant­ing sea­son may limit some of the poten­tial dam­age. WBC prefers to oviposit in corn that has not tas­seled. Despite the antic­i­pated early emer­gence, if most of the corn has tas­seled before peak flight, then feed­ing and dam­age will be min­i­mal. Trap­ping and scout­ing remains our best option to deter­mine the impact of WBC.

Rob Leeds is an OSU Exten­sion educator.

Posted by Rob Leeds on Jun 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.