Corn Earworm – Vegetable Crops Hotline

Corn Earworm

​We are again seeing a lull in pheromone trap catches of corn earworms. However, I caution sweet corn growers to remain vigilant in checking their traps. Populations can increase rapidly, especially if carried north on storm fronts from the Gulf Coast. It is also important to watch the development of the field corn around your sweet corn fields. If the field corn is not yet silking, use a threshold of 1 earworm moth per night to determine if you need to spray when your sweet corn is silking. If the neighboring field corn starts to silk, it will draw a lot of earworm moths away from your sweet corn and the treatment threshold goes up to 10 moths per night. Particularly during this lull in moth flights, this is an opportunity to save money and time by avoiding spraying silking sweet corn.

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