To keep our fingers on the pulse of insect and disease pressure in muck onion production in Wayne County, CVP Field Technician John Gibbons scouts a handful of fields weekly counting disease lesions and onion thrips. Scouting reports are sent to grower cooperators complete with Cornell recommendations. This is a way of evaluating effectiveness of pest management programs, as well as a means of helping onion growers to implement onion IPM by spraying for pests only when they need to be.

Again this year, the Cornell Vegetable Program will be collaborating with the NYS Integrated Pest Management Program to monitor the flights of European corn borer, Corn ear worm, fall armyworm and western bean cutworm. This information is used by NYS IPM to create weekly reports providing scouting and threshold information for fresh market sweet corn and links to resources on the major sweet corn insect and disease pests. Additionally, the information is used by the Cornell Vegetable Program to advise dry bean growers of the threat of western bean cutworm to their crop.