Usually by this time in July, I am writing about how we are approaching peak flight for WBC in at least the southwestern counties. But with the delay in growing degree days this year, we have just caught the first WBC moth in Ontario this week, a month later than usual start catching them.
Despite the late WBC activity, we are not out of the woods. The corn and dry bean crop are behind as well. Some regions will have corn in tassel later this month but many will be into August before fields in tassel. And pods will be lining up then too. There is a good chance that peak flight, potentially not happening until early August, will align with pre-tassel/tassel and pod stages in many fields.
This makes trap monitoring really important. Monitoring traps across the province helps us better predict when peak flight is taking place and how abundant the WBC population is. Those who are just getting traps up now are not too late to join the Great Lakes and Maritimes Pest Monitoring Network that includes WBC traps. Enter your trap sites and trap counts at this link:
Trap Site Survey. Also plan that scouting will need to take place in August this year too. Take note of when fields are entering their attractive stages relative to when trap counts are increasing to know which fields to scout first.
More information on WBC Scouting and Management can be found here:
Source : Filed Crop News