Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs
A few weeks ago we started trapping for Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs to catch their mid-season reproduction and movement toward preferred vegetable and fruit crops where they can feed and cause significant mid to late season injury. There were spikes of nymphs and a smaller surge of adults from the week before in Adams and Greene county, while Wayne, Lake and Huron counties remain at zero reported detections.
Spotted wing Drosophila
Catches of these insects in berry crops continue to be high in Greene and Geauga counties. With a treatment threshold of one adult per site, individual trap catches have ranged between 10 and 124 adults per week. Even with properly timed insecticide sprays and picking ripe fruit every two days if possible will not completely prevent damage to fruit, but it will be minimized. Berries must be protected until harvest is over or severe losses may be seen.
Corn Earworm
Corn earworm adults filled trap in two days.
For any mid to late season sweet corn, expect the next month or two to bring peak corn earworm flights from southern parts of the US, predominantly on storm fronts. Corn earworm populations have climbed this past week in Clark, Huron, and Lake counties and remain present in Wayne and Putnam counties. Zero CEW moths were reported trapped in Sandusky and Seneca counties.
Keys to successfully monitoring CEW require the trap be placed at ear height near fresh silking corn and to change the pheromone lure every two weeks. Failure to do both will result in lower moths captured and a perceived lower threat of infestation leading to a wider spray interval and higher kernel damage and more caterpillars in the ears. In Clark county the trap total was 7 CEW for one week of captures with the trap emptied on 8/11 and moved to a new location about 1/4 mile away on the same farm near silking corn. The CEW trap was checked today (two days later) and captured several hundred moths (see picture at right).
European Corn Borer
This pest is still at low levels across the state according to our monitoring network, with Clark, Sandusky, Seneca, Wayne, Putnam and Wood counties reporting zero moths captured. Only Gauega and Huron counties have reported captures this past week (5 moths and 1 moth respectively). I was sent images of a bell pepper field in southern Ohio that had what appears to be a heavy infestation of corn borer caterpillars in the cap and stem of the fruit but no larvae or frass could be found in the fruit. As other crops begin to dry down, ECB will look for many other crops to lay eggs and cause potential feeding injury to the plant or fruit, so keep vigilant for that pest.
To see what other pests are doing, check out the OSU pest monitoring network at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KLU8rEoaz1Cnt9ILbUf77tSxOIriwZR0Xtj-wwNZgDA/edit?usp=sharing