Insect Highlights

Insect Highlights for the Week of May 22, 2001

Armyworm Moth
ARMYWORM
Moths, moths, everywhere . . . We have been getting a number of reports of one inch gray moths in flowerbeds, lawns and even on sides of houses. Most of them are adult true armyworm moths. They fly or blow up from southern states. We always have some but this year the numbers seem very high. Armyworms are a type of cutworm moth (Noctuidae). Adults feed on the nectar of flowers and are harmless. They are strongly attracted to lights at night and often drawn into garages and porches. The caterpillars are grass-feeding insects. Farmers will have to watch weedy cornfields and grain fields for feeding activity in about two weeks.

Cankerworm
CANKERWORM
This is cankerworm season. Canker worms are green or black inchworms that feed on many broad-leaved tress including oak, birch, elm, maple, and apple. When the worms are full grown (a little over an inch long.) They will hang down from a silk thread as they try to reach the ground. This will happen from now until the early part of June. They transform into moths. The females are wingless and must crawl back onto the trees to lay eggs. This will happen in November for the fall cankerworm and next March for the spring canker worm. Large numbers can strip trees, but the trees will leaf out again during mid June. For more background see http://www1.uwex.edu/ces/pubs/pdf/A3178.PDF.

Common Stalk Borer
STALKBORER
Common Stalk Borer is a stripped caterpillar that will bore into the stems of tomatoes, peppers, potato, raspberry, and many flowering plants. Anything big enough to allow it to live inside the stem can be attacked. Plants start to wilt and die in early June, but now is the time to stop this insect. Eggs were laid last September in grassy weeds, they are now hatching, and the larvae will begin looking for plants to bore into. If you have had problems with stalkborer migrating from grassy fencerows and field edges, the next w weeks is the time to spray permethrin to kill the larvae before they get into plants. Once inside a stem, only two bricks smashed together will kill them.

Return to Entomology Home Page.
URL is http://www.entomologyl.wisc.edu/diaglab/hilt522.html. Updated 05/22/01.

237 Russell Labs
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
608/262-3227

For more information contact:
Phil Pellitteri, 608/262-6510
or e-mail pellitte@entomology.wisc.edu.

	ARMYWORM Moths, moths, everywhere . . . We have been getting a number of reports of one inch gray moths in flowerbeds, lawns and even on sides of houses. Most of them are adult true armyworm moths. They fly or blow up from southern states. We always have some but this year the numbers seem very high. Armyworms are a type of cutworm moth (Noctuidae). Adults feed on the nectar of flowers and are harmless. They are strongly attracted to lights at night and often drawn into garages and porches. The caterpillars are grass-feeding insects. Farmers will have to watch weedy cornfields and grain fields for feeding activity in about two weeks.
	CANKERWORM This is cankerworm season. Canker worms are green or black inchworms that feed on many broad-leaved tress including oak, birch, elm, maple, and apple. When the worms are full grown (a little over an inch long.) They will hang down from a silk thread as they try to reach the ground. This will happen from now until the early part of June. They transform into moths. The females are wingless and must crawl back onto the trees to lay eggs. This will happen in November for the fall cankerworm and next March for the spring canker worm. Large numbers can strip trees, but the trees will leaf out again during mid June. For more background see http://www1.uwex.edu/ces/pubs/pdf/A3178.PDF.
	STALKBORER Common Stalk Borer is a stripped caterpillar that will bore into the stems of tomatoes, peppers, potato, raspberry, and many flowering plants. Anything big enough to allow it to live inside the stem can be attacked. Plants start to wilt and die in early June, but now is the time to stop this insect. Eggs were laid last September in grassy weeds, they are now hatching, and the larvae will begin looking for plants to bore into. If you have had problems with stalkborer migrating from grassy fencerows and field edges, the next w weeks is the time to spray permethrin to kill the larvae before they get into plants. Once inside a stem, only two bricks smashed together will kill them.