News
Corn root worm pressure rising in the Midwest
Agronomists have seen a significant increase of corn root worm beetles in parts of the Midwest this year.
Andy Hegganstaller of northern Illinois is the head of agronomy for Syngenta Seeds. He tells Brownfield in many places they have not seen beetle populations this high since 2013.
“Areas where corn rootworm is an intransient issue are northern Illinois, northern Iowa, Wisconsin, southern Minnesota and then the Colorado and western Nebraska area.”
He says many of those areas had a wet spring in 2018 and 2019 that likely drowned the corn root worm larvae.
“This spring we didn’t have that. We had dry conditions in June and in many areas, it was drying than normal. And what that does is increase the survival of the larvae.”
Heggenstaller says that means there will also likely be high larval pressure next year, so farmers need to be prepared for that from a management perspective.
For Heggenstaller’s tips on managing corn rootworm, listen to Brownfield’s Managing for Profit program.
