Black Cutworm Early Season Threat to Corn

Corn farmers should pay attention to the spring migration of the black cutworm. The moths wing their way into the Midwest every year.

The black cutworm rides the southerlies north into the Corn Belt. The female moths look for farm fields lush and green mostly with weeds. Winter annuals are the favored nesting ground says University of Illinois Extension Entomologist Mike Gray.

Quote Summary - They go into those fields and lay eggs. They lay eggs on those weeds. Eventually, once the fields are planted with corn, many of the surviving black cutworm larvae will move off the weed hosts onto corn seedlings. Corn fields in the one-to-four-leaf stage are very susceptible to cutting.

If those cuts are made below the growing point of the corn plant, then it dies. Most of the cutting, says Mike Gray, takes place over night or occasionally on a very overcast dark cloudy day.

Quote Summary - Growers are encouraged to look for early signs of black cutworm activity. This would be small pin hole areas on leaves that have been removed by the caterpillars in their one to three instar stage. Once they caterpillar reaches the fourth larval instar stage it can begin to cut plants.

Many insecticides can be used as rescue treatments if needed to combat the black cutworm. Most Bt corn is also capable of protecting the crop, but not in equal measure.

Quote Summary - Not all Bt hybrids offer the same level of protection when it comes to black cutworms. Some are quite good, but finding that trait can be confusing. I encourage growers to use the Handy Bt Trait table put out annually by Michigan State University. Search Google for “Handy Bt Trait Table ”. It is very informative and identifies if the hybrid chosen offers black cutworm protection.

If the hybrid chosen does not protect against the black cutworm, then the farmer will clearly, urges Gray, need to pay much more attention to the lifecycle of the insect and potentially gear-up for rescue treatments as needed.

2015 Gross Revenues for Corn Using RP85% + ARC Co

A University of Illinois Ag Economist has back figured how the new farm program would have performed over the last 40 growing seasons when coupled to crop insurance. The calculations can be used as a guidepost to 2015 farm incomes.



The exercise coupled RP crop insurance at the 85% level to the ARC County farm program to see how it would have supplemented farm income on a highly productive central Illinois farm located in Logan County. The numbers were run for crop years starting in 1975 all the way through 2014 says Gary Schnitkey. He’s an ag economist at the University of Illinois and explains, to begin with, how this combination would have handled the years farmer are most likely to remember; 1980, 83, 88, and 2012.

Quote Summary - So those are the drought years, and while in 1988 we didn’t have the crop insurance products we do now, we can figure what income would have looked like if a producer had purchased RP at the 85% level and took ARC County. Those years would not be bad from a gross revenue stand point. Crop revenues would be low, but crop insurance and ARC County payments would bring those back so that if, for instance 2015 looked like 1988 or 2012, the gross income would be at the top end of our distribution over the 40 year period.

Yields and prices in each of the 40 years are calculated using 2015 projections, but the actual year offsets. 2012, then. would show a lower actual price (because this years crop insurance price is lower than 2012’s) but a higher actual yield. Essentially you pick a year, adjust for 2015, and calculate the gross income.

The middle point (where the distribution is not quite evenly split above and below but close) is $828 per acre. The low revenue year forecasts correlate mostly with trend yields and lower corn prices. So, with a somewhat normal growing season that has below average prices. That could be caused by large residual supplies, big carryouts, or by poor demand.

Quote Summary - Poorer demand or something along that lines. Those types of years will be the ones that cause low revenues in 2015.

The ten middle years of the set project 2015 gross revenues from $825 to $831 per acre for corn. They were each characterized by harvest prices and yields relatively close to expected levels - the February crop insurance price and trend yield. Those years include 1984, 1990, 1991, 1996, 2002, and 2009.

Link to original FarmDocDaily article

Corn Market Expects Large Supply & Weak Demand

The price of corn is as low as it has been since last fall. It reflects the large size of last year’s crop, and surprisingly little concern about this year’s crop.

December corn futures in Chicago, at the time of this writing, were priced in the low $3.80’s. That’s about twenty cents better than the contract low set last fall, but still not nearly strong enough to reflect the $4.25 season’s average cash price the University of Illinois ag economists are using in their supply and demand table for the coming year. Darrel Good sums it up this way.

Quote Summary - Current prices appear to reflect minimum production risk and surprisingly weak demand prospects.

Let’s take that statement apart. We’ll start with price. The price of old crop corn, while at the lowest level since last October at the futures exchange in Chicago, isn’t nearly so cheap in the country. Last fall corn for July delivery in central Illinois was priced 70 cents under the July contract. It is 14 under now. Here’s what that, in relative terms, means. The cash price for the same delivery time, at this point, could be as much as 70 cents better today than it was last fall. The supply and demand of corn have changed since last fall, too. However, looking forward Darrel Good says the current price of corn reflects expectations for a combination of prolonged demand weakness and another year of ample supplies.

Quote Summary - Expectations for demand weakness center on the ethanol and export markets. It is generally argued that plateauing domestic ethanol consumption, a stronger dollar that could favor ethanol imports and discourages exports, and low crude oil prices will limit the price of ethanol and the demand for corn. Similarly, abundant world grain supplies and a stronger dollar are expected to create a weak demand environment for U.S. corn in the world market. In contrast, domestic feed demand for corn should be supported by ongoing expansion in livestock and poultry numbers, even with some loss of poultry numbers to bird flu.

The combination of expanding livestock numbers and low corn prices, writes Good in his FarmDacDaily website posting of April 27th, should generate a high level of consumption. That’s demand. Supply will be largely dependent on the number of acres of corn farmers plant this spring, and weather this summer. We’ll no more June 30th when USDA releases the Planted Acreage report. Here’s how those numbers have changed from March to June since 1996.

Quote Summary - From 1996 (the beginning of the freedom to farm era) through 2014, the final estimate of planted acreage of corn exceeded the March intentions estimate in seven years and was less than the March estimate in 12 years. In most years, the difference was within the range of sampling error, estimated at one to three percent. The exception was 2007 when actual planted acres exceeded intentions by nearly 3.1 million acres.

There is already a lot of discussion again this year about the direction and magnitude of the difference between actual and intended acreage of corn. Chances are, says Darrel Good, the difference will not substantially alter production expectations.

All else equal, the larger percentage of the crop that is planted in a timely fashion the higher the U.S. average yield potential. However, all else is rarely equal Good claims, with the magnitude of yield ultimately determined by summer weather. Unless an unusually large or small percentage of the crop is planted late this year, yield expectations should continue to focus on trend value in the range of 164 to 165 bushels. The USDA will report an expected yield in the May 12 WASDE figures. That yield expectation is based on a weather adjusted trend model that reflects expected planting progress at mid-May.

As for current prices, these appear to reflect minimum production risk and surprisingly weak demand prospects.

Protect Backyard Chickens from Avian Flu

More people than you might think are keeping chickens in their backyards. These birds, just as those grown commercially, are at risk to the H5N2 Avian Influenza virus. Todd Gleason has more on why and what keepers of backyard flocks can do to protect their birds.



Turkeys and chickens along the Mississippi River flyway in the Midwest are at risk to catching the flu every year. This year a new highly contagious version of the virus called H5N2 has developed. It’s nasty and a bird killer. This is why the U.S. government is taking so much care to control its spread. The farm manager of the University of Illinois’ poultry research facilities, Chet Utterback, says commercial flocks aren’t the only birds at risk.

Quote Summary - I would encourage everyone, whether you have two chickens or twenty chickens or two-hundred chickens, or two-hundred-thousand chickens or two-million chickens to be very, very diligent in staying away from areas where there are Canadian geese nesting, where there are any water fowl what-so-ever.

Migratory birds of all types stop along their routes at water sources. It doesn’t matter much how busy the area is, if there is a pond there are likely to be at least few Canadian Geese around. They could be carrying the flu, and it could be the H5N2 version and you could walk right through it… though that, to this point, wouldn’t be a problem for your personal health… it could be a load of problem for your birds.

Quote Summary - The biggest thing people need to be aware of is how many viruses are there. According to a microbiologist at Penn State involved with the outbreak in 2006, in one gram positive sample of manure from a wild waterfowl, about the size of a dime, there can be more than one-million flu viruses with the potential to affect other birds.

The point is bio-security measures need to be taken to protect backyard flocks as well as commercially raised birds. It’s a big word, but in this case simply means not wearing the same clothes or shoes into the coop that you might have just been wearing at the shopping center, or the pond, or any place wild waterfowl gather.