More Flights of Black Cutworm Moths Have Arrived in Southeastern Pennsylvania

May 16, 2022

Black cutworm moths continue to arrive in southeastern Pennsylvania, but in the rest of the state our traps have yielded relatively few individuals. Penn State's Black Cutworm Monitoring Network has now detected five "significant flights" of moths (9 moths over two nights)—two in Lancaster County (near Manheim and Landisville) and three in Lebanon County (near Fredericksburg, Cornwall, and Bellegrove). See last week's article for an overview of the damage potential from black cutworm caterpillars to corn and our recommended strategy for control. We will update you weekly on the status of accumulated degree days at these sites and if others emerge, and keep you informed of when the risk of cutting damage to corn plants approaches (Table 1). See our fact sheet on black cutworm for more details.

Table 1. Significant flights of black cutworm moths detected in Pennsylvania in 2022, and accumulated degree days since trapping.

County	Nearest town	Date significant flight detected	Accumulated degree days*
Lancaster	Landisville	11 April	157
Lancaster	Manheim	1 May	69
Lebanon	Bellegrove	1 May	65
Lebanon	Cornwall	1 May	61
Lebanon	Fredericksburg	11 April	110

^*As of 12 May 2022

Source : psu.edu

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators