It is week two for scouting in our Eastern 1 and 2 research fields. In order to  potentially reduce pesticide use, grower costs, and pesticide residue in cured-leaf, research is being conducted at three locations throughout North Carolina; two in eastern North Carolina, and one in the Piedmont. Using Integrated Pest Management, we hope to achieve these goals with weekly scouting reports and monitoring, both in IPM fields and grower standard fields. You can find last week’s scouting report here.

Soil conditions are drier than last week, but flea beetle numbers have increased in this week’s report. They are still below threshold, however. This weeks scouting reports resulted in the following:

Scouting Report , Eastern 1 – Grower Standard Field

Insect observation	No. aphid infested plants	Flea beetles/plant	Percent tobacco budworm infestation	Hornworms/plant	Percent cutworm damaged plants	Other insects
Treatment needed?	0 – No treatment	10 beetles/50 plants.  0.2 beetles/plant. No treatment	0 – No treatment	0 – No treatment	0 – No treatment	0 – No treatment

Scouting Report, Eastern 2 – IPM Field

Insect observation	No. aphid infested plants	Flea beetles/plant	Percent tobacco budworm infestation	Hornworms/plant	Percent cutworm damaged plants	Other insects
Treatment needed?	0 – No Treatment	7 beetles/50 plants. 0.14 beetles/plant. No treatment	0 – No treatment	0 – No treatment	0 – No Treatment	0 – No treatment

Notes: Most flea beetles, in both the IPM and growers standard field, were sluggish and mostly non-active upon observation, most likely from the imidacloprid treatment in the greenhouse prior to transplant.

Click here for last weeks scouting report from May 2, 2014.