(Lakefield, Mn.)– The overall condition of corn and soybean crops in the area remains excellent. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield says most of the corn is fully tasseled with the soybeans at the R3 stage of development and canopying. He cautions, though, that they are starting to see signs of root worm activity with corn…
“We’re seeing a fair amount of extended diapause and the northern corn root worm. That’s been around for a long time and basically what that is even though you rotate that corn-soybean rotation, the northern corn root worm won’t hatch until the following year when you have corn again. And so some of the double prose that we have out there and even with some of the insecticide treatments we’re seeing significant feeding on some of those roots and it’s just something to be aware of. We’re going out with our corn root worm beetle trap. Counts have been a little bit lower so that’s kind of good news for next year and, you know, we probably did see with all the excessive moisture last year, we probably did see some type of reduction in the population because of the excess moisture.”
Nesseth says root worms could become a significant issue as they could cause corn plants to collapse during high wind events. Nesseth says it’s also important to continue monitoring for fungal diseases…
“Right now we don’t see a lot but full tassel is really when you want to try to do that treatment, the fungicide treatment to get the best affect, and there’s usually about 21 days residual on that, so that’s good, but we could see some later season infestation, some leaf diseases, and maybe that’s a time to do another treatment or maybe even a second treatment if you think tar spot is present.”
Nesseth says, however, those treatments do come with a price tag at roughly $35 per acre.
