The Ohio State University Western bean cutworm (WBC) network has officially started monitoring traps as of last week. Green bucket traps containing a lure were placed along the edges of corn fields during the week of June 17th. The first trap count includes WBC adults captured during the week of June 24th. Overall, 22 counties monitored 62 traps across Ohio; which resulted in 12 WBC adults captured (0.2 average moths per trap) (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Average Western bean cutworm adult per trap followed by total number of traps in the county in parentheses for week ending June 29, 2019.
The adults are moths that begin to emerge in late June and peak flight occurs anytime between the 2nd through 4th week of July (Figure 2). Monitoring for the adults allows us to pinpoint the optimal time to begin scouting for egg masses as well as track peak flight across the state. While it is too early to tell what kind of year we will have with WBC, it is important to note that WBC prefers to lay eggs in pre-tassel corn.
Figure 3. Average Western bean cutworm (WBC) adults for each week from June 23 through August 25 in 2016 (blue), 2017 (red), 2018 (green) and 2019 (purple).
More information on our trapping summary for the 2018 field season can be found here: https://aginsects.osu.edu/sites/aginsects/files/imce/Trapping%20summary%202018%20AGINSECTS.pdf
Further information on WBC can be found in our fact sheet: http://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/ENT-40 and a free article in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management: http://jipm.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/1/A1