Scouting for adult weevils in western New York

It is Monday morning, May 4, 2020. My first blog ever. Over the last 14 years, my routine has been; drive, scout, drive. Repeat over and over again. For those that know me, all my life I’ve been a field guy trying to kill insects. Not a desk person. I literally stink at typing. So here we go.

First, as we all know in western New York, our spring is shaping up to be wet and cold. In the last few weeks, we had four inches of snow and three days ago, over 2.5 inches of rain. Our growing degree days (GDDs) for Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, New York have a seasonal departure from -36, -52, and -43 respectively from last season. In Buffalo, New York during the entire month of April we observed only three days around 50°F. Most days were around 40°F. The forsythia has been in full bloom for two weeks. It’s hard to believe that snow is in the forecast for Friday. Most superintendents with whom I communicate state that they wanted to wait for their first adulticide to whack the weevils. I agree.

As you would expect, on the near 50° days when the sun came out, the weevils were out walking around. They were collected in mower baskets and I could vacuum a low number of weevils. Every day this season, when scouting for adult weevils, I collect a low number of weevils. At this time, this is typical in our region. As soon as I see the numbers of weevils go up, I intensify the number of samples. If they stay up, this is when I recommended an application based on WeevilTrak recommendations to nuke the adults.

Read the full post by Rod Ferrentino on Syngenta’s WeevilTrak website.