Insect Alert For

Corn Earworm

Risk Level:
Moderate Risk
Affected Area:
Full page
Alert Details

A cold front is expected to move through much of the corn-growing region by early Thursday this week. Ahead of this front, however, south to southwest winds will be common and may result in scattered corn earworm moth flights especially into fresh market and processing fields in the northern corn-growing region in the next 24 hours. Moderate risks are predicted from northeast Missouri, eastern Iowa, and Wisconsin east into Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and lower Michigan with Low risks stretching mainly along/east of the I-35 corridor. Once this front passes through, little to no migration risk is in the forecast tomorrow night into Thursday, but Low risks are already back in the forecast for late in the week and at least in the early portion of next weekend as the next weather system develops in Canada and drags another cold front through the corn-growing region. One thing of note is that as we are moving further into September, these fronts will become stronger and the window for corn earworm migration will be narrower. Nonetheless, growers with intentionally-later planted crops that are still susceptible to corn earworm damage are encouraged to continue trapping and scouting efforts until harvest as numerous flights have been documented in the past couple weeks.