To put this in perspective, the 7-year average for this week of the season is 115 per WEEK. So in just two nights the capture we are already 87% above the historical weekly average. There is no way to know if the numbers will remain at their current level for five more nights, but if they did then next Wednesday I would report 752 moths per trap.
Regardless of how things go for the next five days, we are now well above the 7-year average. My non-Bt corn is taking significant damage, and this is before most of the caterpillars are anywhere near large. Egg masses are easy to find.
The good news is that fall armyworm is not generally a big problem very far north of Lubbock. My colleagues and I checked research plots with non-Bt corn at both Halfway and Bushland this week and found very little damage from either fall armyworm or corn earworm. However, this might not be the case next week, especially at Halfway.
