AIR JULY 15, 1998

Thank you Mark and good morning everyone. I told someone late last week that I was leaving the state for the weekend, and whenever I do that it seems to rain so look out - and sure enough a good part of the county got a good rain on Saturday!

Given the hot dry weather we’ve had, at times, it’s no surprise that chinch bug damage is showing up. Fields in the western half of the county are seeing damage and several fields have lost considerable stand on field edges. Some of this loss was in fields that were Gaucho treated, but this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. We know that just about all of our planting time insecticide treatments start to run out after 3 to 4 weeks. We also know that if we have dry conditions at planting and emergence we will have poorer control. And if the stand was a little thin because of poor emergence then that field will also be more attractive to chinch bugs. Heavy rains and high humidity will certainly be a deterrent to further buildup of chinch bugs, but treatment may still be necessary. We know from past years that there are several compounds that will give good chinch bug control IF we can get it on the chinch bug. Application rates of 20 to 40 gallons per acre help but it’s even better if you can use drop nozzles directed to the base of the plants and spray early in the morning when chinch bugs are more active. Insecticides labeled for rescue treatments include Furadan, Lorsban, Sevin, Warrior and Baythroid. I would be very leery of using Furadan especially if you are spraying the field yourself, the other products should all have better levels of safety. Research suggests that all have about equal efficacy so look at safety and cost. How often should you spray?? Well, the label will pretty well restrict how much total compound you can apply, but if you don’t have them significantly stopped after two treatments economics will probably dictate that you shut off any additional spraying. If you corn growers think that this is just a milo problem you’d better think again. I looked at one corn field in the eastern third of the county that had lost several lower leaves from chinch bug feeding. Granted, it’s too late to do anything for corn now, but if you are seeing lower leaf die back it may not hurt to pull a few leaf sheaths away and see what you find. And this isn’t the first time that I’ve seen chinch bugs damaging corn. Consider it a heads up for next year!

This is Chuck Otte, County Extension Agent, with Ag Outlook '98.

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