[vetsinag] Farm Tip Tuesday: Controlling Army Worms while Protecting Bees

[Robyn Metzger]

This week's farm tip comes from Nina Prater, an Agriculture Specialist based in NCAT's Southeast Regional Office. Nina and her family have a grass-based cow-calf operation in Arkansas. Nina writes:

"Two weeks ago we spotted army worms, a pest that can decimate the pastures if you don’t control them. We sprayed permethrin, but only on fields where they passed a density threshold. We determined whether or not to spray by walking all the pastures and taking random samples to see if the army worm density was greater than three worms per square foot. If it was over that threshold, we sprayed.  [For instructions on scouting fields and sampling for army worms, see Managing Army Worms in Pastures and Hayfields<https://www.uaex.edu/publications/PDF/FSA-7083.pdf> from the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.]

We generally avoid spraying any pesticides on our land. We prefer to manage weeds and insects as holistically as possible through careful grazing management and by maintaining plenty of habitat for beneficial insects. The exception to this, though, is army worms. They are just too voracious and have the potential to damage the pastures to such an extent that it would require major hay supplementation to keep our livestock fed. It also would expose the soil to the elements, making it vulnerable to erosion.
We have a neighbor who keeps several bee hives on the farm, and we wanted to make sure we did not harm his bees with the permethrin, so we asked for his input before spraying. He said that if we sprayed as late in the day as possible, most of the bees would have already returned to the hives and would be unharmed. The insecticide can only harm them while it is wet. By spraying in the evening and leaving it to dry overnight, the insecticide is safe for the bees and still deadly for the army worms. I thought this was an excellent tip for mitigating the harm of the permethrin on non-target insect populations. Even if you don’t keep bees on your land, your neighbors’ honeybees could be foraging on your fields. There are hopefully wild bees as well, so we want to make sure we do the least harm."

This tip is part of a longer post Nina wrote recently for the NCAT Southeast<https://www.ncat.org/ncat-southeast-regional-office/> blog. See Farm Update: Late Summer in the Ozarks<https://www.ncat.org/farm-update-late-summer-in-the-ozarks/> for more about what's happening at their place this time of year.
If you need more information about pest control, protecting pollinators, or other farming questions, you can always contact Nina or any of our agriculture specialists at askanag at ncat.org or 800-346-9140.
With best regards,
Robyn

Robyn Metzger

Program Specialist/Armed to Farm Coordinator
National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT)

www.ncat.org/armedtofarm<http://www.ncat.org/armedtofarm>

www.attra.ncat.org<http://www.attra.ncat.org>

479-442-9824

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