2024 has been a “buggy” year; that’s according to Bayer Crop Science Technical Agronomist Lance Tarchionne. He starts by looking towards alfalfa saying this has been the worst alfalfa weevil season he has seen, with some farmers opting to spray fields twice before their first cutting.
“We had a decent amount of cutworms, we had heavy stink bug pressure- more stink bugs than I’ve ever seen. We had our normal, bean leaf beetle, we had Japanese beetle, which was not the worst we’ve ever had, but there was plenty of those out there, says Tarchionne. “A lot of people thought they were seeing more corn rootworm beetles this year, so the corn rootworm population looks to be up. And then we get into this aphid scenario, which ended up being probably the worst insect problem of all of them.”
Tarchionne notes that the pest population for one year doesn’t necessarily impact the scale of pests seen the next year. He adds that any farmer thinking about planting corn on corn will need to pay attention to rootworm pressure.
“I would certainly expect to see the possibility of a higher level of rootworm pressure in corn on corn next year,” says Tarchionne. “Little good news for producers on that the yellow sticky traps that we’re putting out in soybean fields are not catching any egg-laying adult western corn rootworm beetles in soybean fields. So that’s that’s good for next year’s first-year corn.”
For farmers looking to plant corn on corn, Tarchionne recommends using rootworm technology to help protect fields.
