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  • From: "William H Shoemaker" <wshoemak AT illinois.edu>
  • To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] BT sweet corn. Get IPM Reports.
  • Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:45:54 -0600

Kim

Because you need to use a lot of acreage to produce sweet corn, and because
the moth flights that cause damage can be huge populations, they would
probably have minimal effect. You would need the traps every 20' in every
direction I would guess to have a reasonable impact. Then there's the
question of how many worms can you afford to miss? I think pheremone
trapping and using a zea-lator would be less difficult and more reliable. Of
course, as Bob suggests, everyone has a unique field in a unique location
with unique conditions. Does your trap have a blacklight in it?

Bill



Subject: Re: [Market-farming] BT sweet corn. Get IPM Reports.

Greetings,

I am curious, our major problems all come from moths, so we built the
bug catcher that was in a book by Rodale press, called: Build It Better
Yourself. We used two last summer in our garden and our tomato pin worm
problem went away. The catchers are a light, inside a bright yellow box
with a fan at the back and a stocking behind that to catch the moths
that get sucked in. Right now, we are looking for DC powered fans, but
finding the right ones is tricky. They have to be strong enough to not
stop when the moths and occasional large grasshopper hits them.

Could something like this be used to protect corn? Sure would be nicer
than all those chemicals, and it makes great chicken, fish or turkey feed.

Bright Blessings,
Kim

sunnfarm AT netscape.com wrote:
> There is a period in early July in NJ when we don't get earworms but its
impossible to predict what day to seed corn in April or May to have the
corn mature between earworm flights. By August earworms are well established
and here for the peak of the market season. Even if you beat the earworm on
one planting you will get worms on the next. Regardless we also get corn
borers thorough the season since they over winter and do even more damage
than earworms. We get weekly IPM reports on moth activity which is very
helpful in predicting when to expect greater damage just find a monitoring
site near you and go by that or get a monitoring station on your property.
> Without Bt corn we have to spray pesticides every three days without fail
from June to September then every two days until October. Ive done this
every summer for all my adult life so you can see what a relief Bt corn can
be for growers like myself... Bob.
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