Insect Identification Laboratory (Eric Day)

Field Crops

The completed Corn Earworm Survey is in the next shipment from the Distribution Center if you did not already receive electronically. Now would be a good time to teach scouting methods for soybeans.

Vegetables

Remove all large stemmed weeds and stalks and stems of plants that are done producing. These plants can act as nursery and overwintering sites for stalk borers and European corn borers.

Ornamentals and Shade Trees

Now is a good time to check for early damage from late summer defoliators. Caterpillars like the orange striped oakworm, greenstriped mapleworm, fall webworm, and poplar tentmakers are just getting started and are now easy to control. Later this month they will be too big to spray and will have already caused their damage. Treat when caterpillars less then 1/2" are found.

Euonymus Scale, second generation, is active now and can be controlled with foliar sprays.

European Hornets will become more active this month and will start chewing the bark off of small trees particularly lilac and virburnum but others as well. Look for patches of bark removed exposing the cambium.

LARGE Cicada Killer wasps are active now and are digging holes in soil and sand. They rarely sting and are considered beneficial.

Sccouting tips for August will go out next week.

Eric Day
Insect Identification Laboratory
Department of Entomology
307 Price Hall
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA 24061
(W) 540-231-4899
Fax 540-231-9131

idlab@vt.edu

See my lab homepage:

http://www.ento.vt.edu/Facilities/OnCampus/IDInfo.html