Corn Earworm
Corn earworm migration risks are in the forecast tonight into tomorrow roughly along/west of the I-39 and US 51 corridors in central Wisconsin southward through Illinois as some modest southerly wind flow from the Plains east into the corn-growing region does return and becomes at least a little bit established. The overall weather pattern, however, is not conducive to widespread moth flights and while some locally intense flights will be possible tonight and tomorrow night, we are keeping the overall risk in the Low category as these flights are expected to be isolated in nature. The Low risk continues tomorrow night into the Great Lakes and eastern corn-growing region as a weak cool front moves southeast and eventually through the region. This is a strongly-worded Low risk mainly because of the isolated nature of any expected flights, but we do have a situation where mid-south and southern states crops are quickly becoming non-attractive hosts for corn earworms, so in order to survive those moths are either going to find the few fields in the source regions still attractive, or they are going to fly north. Growers with crops at susceptible stages to corn earworm damage, especially gardens and the processing/fresh market growers that have intentionally-later planted and maturing crops will become much more attractive hosts in the coming weeks and these growers need to stay on top of trap monitoring and scouting until the crop is not longer at a vulnerable stage to damage. We may and will likely introduce additional migration risks for next weekend and/or early next week, as well, as soon as tomorrow or Wednesday.

