Heliothine Trap Counts, May 25, 2018

We will be posting pheromone trap catch data again this year from several counties in Mississippi to give you an idea when pressure is greatest and whether your population is likely mostly bollworm (corn earworm) or tobacco budworm. We have 3-4 Hartstack-style pheromone traps for each insect in each county reported, and we report the average catch per trap. While these trap catches are helpful for an overall assessment of moth pressure, local insect pressure can differ, so these trap numbers should not be used to make management decisions without scouting your field. To give a perspective on the meaning of the trap catch numbers, we include last year’s data for the same time period and the 10-year average catch for this time period. The counts for this week indicate we currently have a fair amount of bollworm moth activity, but this is a little less than typical for this time of year. Tobacco budworm counts are low, consistent with long term averages.