Fall Armyworm: Keep Looking

Oct 13, 2021

By Bryan Jensen

What a ride! This fall armyworm infestation has been unprecedented and likely (for me), a once in a career experience. Not to say this infestation has been an extremely high with over-the-top damaging population but rather one that has caused some economic problems in several cropping situation and certainly caused a lot of attention.

Here is what we do know. Fall armyworm do not overwinter in WI. The moths migrate to our state during late summer and early fall. Therefore, the problems we are experiencing will have no bearing on future years. From a crop management standpoint, they are usually a novelty insect except for some infrequent ear damage in sweet corn.

This year I have seen and heard about infestations that are now mid to late instars and some that have early to late instars. No reports of populations comprised of only small larvae. That suggests to me this problem is winding down. Ohio State Entomologist’s have also suggested that larval mortality should/could be observed with prolonged temperatures of 650 F or below. Adults may survive colder temperatures, but I have a hard time thinking the resulting larval generation could cause significant crop damage.

Field situations where I have heard of problems include pastures, alfalfa (both established and new seedings), cover crops and fall seeded small grains. There aren’t economic threshold for these situations. Rather, judge the defoliation potential and how that might impact winter survival and/or potential for forage loss if a late-season harvest were to be taken. Project ahead, don’t look at the past. You can’t resurrect damage that has already happened. Just try to prevent future damage.

If you are in a situation with multiple cover crops planted, significant damage potential, and you are going to take a late season harvest you must choose an insecticide that is labeled for all planted crops and an insecticide that has a pre-harvest interval suitable for your harvest schedule. That may be very difficult to do.

Source : wisc.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators