This message is being recorded on Thursday afternoon September 3rd by Jude Boucher.

This week's message will cover:

• Corn earworm

• Fall armyworm and European corn borer

• Next pumpkin spray

Corn earworm pheromone trap counts
Last week, after I recorded the message, I received new numbers from East Hartford which put them at 65 moths per night.  That means that both Shelton and East Hartford were the high spots last week with 65 moths per night.  These same two farms had the high counts again this week but the moth counts were down to 15-17 moths per night at both locations. So, both Shelton and East Hartford are still on a 3 day spray schedule on fresh silking corn.  Traps in Northford, New Milford, Glastonbury and Ellington were down to between 2 and 8 moths per night and are on a 4 day spray schedule.  Traps in Berlin captured just 0.5 moths per night, dropping that farm down to a 6 day spray schedule on fresh silking corn.  If temperatures are below 80 degrees or you are using Warrior or a similar synthetic pyrethroid insecticide, you can safely stretch the above mentioned spray intervals by 1 day.  That means that most farms that do not have their own traps should be on a 5 day spray schedule this coming week.  

Fall armyworm and European corn borer
ECB pheromone traps in Northford, Shelton, Glastonbury, Berlin and East Hartford all captured between 1 and 4 moths for the past week.  With the lower CEW or tomato fruit worm counts this week you can safely stop spraying tomatoes and peppers with an insecticide at this time.  FAW traps captured between 0 and 7 moths this week.  Scout pretassel stage corn, if you have any left, and spray with SpinTor or Avaunt if 10% of the plants are infested with worms.    

Next pumpkin spray
Some growers are asking if they should put on one final pumpkin spray this week.  The answer to that question depends upon when you plan to harvest your pumpkins.  If your fields are like most that I have seen around Connecticut, you have many full-sized fruit, but some that still need some size.  In these fields you still want to preserve the health of your foliage to help size the rest of the fruit and should apply something for powdery mildew, another product for downy mildew, and a third product in the mix for the fruit rot diseases such as Plecto, black rot and scab.  If you haven't used Quintec yet, then you can apply something like Quintec, Ranman and Bravo.  If you have already applied one spray with each of our three effective systemic fungicides groups, represented by the products Quintec, Pristine, Procure, and Rally, then you can use sulfur for powdery mildew in your next application and add something like Presidio and Bravo for the DM and fruit rots.