By Justin McMechan and Jenny Brhel et.al
What’s Happening?
Some farmers and crop consultants in southern, central and eastern Nebraska are seeing young corn plants with wilted or dead leaves in the whorl . If you cut these plants open, you may find a small white maggot likely the wheat stem maggot. The larvae can be difficult to find. Recovery rates of larvae from damaged plants were 11% to 80% depending on the field, according to a past survey.
This problem was first documented in Nebraska in 2017, although sporadic issues have occurred before that. Issues were isolated to fields where corn followed a green cover crop like rye or wheat. The problem only occurs in areas where a rye or wheat cover crop was planted, and damage can range from just a few plants to more than 50%. In some cases, growers have reported yield losses of up to 30 bushels per acre.
Learning from This Year’s Problem
Aaron Nygren, extension educator at the Eastern Nebraska Research Extension and Education Center (ENREEC), has been planting corn into green rye for years. But this year, for reasons we don’t fully understand, he’s seeing quite a bit of wheat stem maggot damage, similar to what some farmers are now experiencing across the state.
Source : unl.edu