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Mild winter leads to certain insect concerns this spring

The lack of a deep freeze this winter has an agronomist concerned about overwintering pests.

Matt Montgomery with Pioneer tells Brownfield…

“If we’re talking about something like alfalfa weevil, that overwinters here, then yep.”  He says, “Very interestingly, at the end of February, people were beginning to send me pictures of alfalfa weevil chewing on alfalfa.”

In corn…

“Other overwintering insects like corn flea beetle, first generation corn borer, those we would see a little bit increased potential from just because survival is going to be that much better,” he says.

He says mild winters typically don’t impact other insect populations…

“Things like rootworms, things like Japanese beetle, those things are overwintering in the ground, so they’re normally buffered from our mild winter weather.”  He says, “And then we have other things like black cut worm that are actually migrating up from the south, and so, what happens here doesn’t really impact them.”

Montgomery says fields with early season weed germination, or cover crop growth, should take priority when scouting for pests this spring.