Black Cutworm
After a week of largely northwest flow dominated weather, a return to at least zonal or even southwesterly flow is anticipated by the weekend as low pressure develops in the Plains and high pressure moves off to the east of the corn-growing region. Southerly flow is likely to develop between these two features, and may lead to some isolated black cutworm moth flights especially west of Lake Michigan and I-57 in eastern Illinois by Saturday night into Sunday. Despite a lack of migration risk in the short term, growers should continue to scout fields that have newly emerged corn and check heat unit accumulation and trap count charts to see when new generations may be emerging. Given a fairly large amount of corn emerging at this time, this is an important stage in the growing season to scout for black cutworms to prevent potential cutting damage.