The Fall Armyworm Trap located in EC JA Co. continues to collect male moths – and reports keep trickling in about stand injury. What’s next? A few thoughts…
- Continue Scouting: the southward migration of Fall Armyworm likely won’t occur for some time yet. Additional generations will be looking for tender growth to continue their life cycle and regrowing forages – brome recovering from previous feeding, recently harvested alfalfa, or even newly seeded cover crops – are prime targets.
- Evaluate Stands: with decent moisture across parts of NEK, stands should start to regrow – if other factors aren’t holding them back. If the stand was recently harvested, regrew a bit, and then was fed on, root system energy reserves may be depleted enough to result in slow recovery (see below) – or even stand loss. If you don’t see some recovery after 2-3 weeks, consider digging up plants to see if new growth has been initiated.
- Consider Options for Fall Seeding: with any luck, the stand will recover quickly and we’ll move on. If they do not, consider what you want to reseed and what the fall planting window for that forage may look like.
We have decent moisture and likely 6+ weeks of good growing conditions left for stands to make a comeback. Be vigilant, but be patient as well. The chart below shows how plants are affected when large amounts of leaf are removed:
