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Worst Army Worms I’ve ever seen - DESTRUCTION!! …..

Sligh1

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Staff member
Growing ANYTHING always has a battle. Maybe you get those occasional years when things are “easy” but not the norm- always something. This year we’ve battled: coons worse than ever (I got depredation approved) & killed about 400+ in 45 days now. Drought on 2 occasions this year.

my buddy an hour from me sent me this. I’ve been to his place & usually looks fantastic. He’s a full time farmer but does hunt & has plots. He mowed & sprayed his alfalfa & brassicas he planted. Here is one before picture on brassicas about 10 days ago. Look how fast this changed!!!!….. picture yesterday- 10 days later- one pic was alfalfa ate to nothing & one was brassicas gone.
Then a pic of his mower. I’ve never seen anything like this. Thank goodness there is spray & things to replant. If you think things can be bad- always something worse!!! This food plot looks like it belongs in Afghanistan right now. :oops::eek:o_O:confused::rolleyes:
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I should have taken pictures of my garage approach, covered in worms, ate my yard overnight, brassicas were just starting to germinate so I got ahead of the curve and saved them. I believe in 10 days they go from a tiny, tiny little worm that's hard to notice to a full size army worm, their growth rate is insane. I got mine under control and got luckily and all my brassica plots are good, will soon be planting my rye plots, and I'm sure I will have to continue battling them into October.

If you never dealt with them, first thing you'll notice is little white spots on grass and leaves, it's called window panning, essentially the worms are so little they cant even bite through the grass so just scrap plant material off. If you see this, SPRAY! Its hard to even find the worms at this stage, a week later they are huge and will have basically destroyed the plot.

I have used Bifen in the past, I don't really know about residual but definitely is a quick knockdown. Just resprayed my brassica plots again as they were showing some slight pressure again and added imidacloprid to my mix per suggestion by Skip. Didn't realize i already had some in my apple tree spray chemicals.

I don't know if me being farther south than most of you brings more issues to me than you? I used to not deal with them, now for last 4 or so years its every year, this has been the worst this year.
 
I have a farm in SE Iowa and have a 10 acre hay field that looks like it was sprayed with gly. 100% brown except some milkweed. I have been told the damage is from army worms and the local coop has seen a few other hayfields with destruction in the area. I have not been back to the farm since finding this out to look around further.
 
Bad over here lately, too. Here's an infographic sent from our seed dealer.
 

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