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First Western Bean Cutworm Larvae Found in Ontario

My summer students are going to be frustrated when they find this out, especially with all of the scouting they have done looking for WBC egg masses and larvae and finding nothing to show for it. But today Adam Pfeffer of Monsanto brought in the first WBC larvae found here in Ontario. The larvae was from a corn field in Rodney Ontario. This tells us that there are probably other sites with some larvae in them as well, so I do encourage you to be out scouting your fields too. Larvae would most likely be in the ear of the corn. But we are also still catching moths in our traps so some egg laying could still be taking place.

Purdue University put a WBC scouting video within their newsletter this week which helps explain how to look for larvae in the corn ear: http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/pestcrop/2009/issue21/index.html

And Ron Hammond from Ohio State University put together a video from our trip to visit Chris DiFonzo from Michigan State University in one of her heavily infested corn field last year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5EsPWySxEI

If you do find ear feeding, larvae or egg masses, please let me know!