Question:

I sprayed my peanuts last Friday with Folicur, Bravo and 6.4 ounces of Bifen. I still have worms in my peanuts and won't be able to get back in the fields for at least another week. What is your recommendation on the product to use? I’m using 15 gpa of water.

Jordan:

It is possible that all of this rain will knock the worms from the canopy down to the lower portion of the canopy or to the ground. We have found at times that a hard shower or prolonged rain can be as good as an insecticide. With that said, if you used a pyrethroid, we typically don't expect to get more than 65% control of corn earworms due to resistance in many of the populations around the state. If you had some boll worms (tobacco budworms by another name,) pyrethroids are weak on these. The only way to distinguish between a corn earworm and tobacco budworm is to look at the mandibles or teeth of the worm. We have been encouraging people to spray the more expensive products like Steward, Prevathon, etc. that give broad-spectrum control. But I would look close after the storm. In August, especially with some of the excessive vine growth we have, the threshold is 12 worms per foot of row using a beat cloth. Hopefully, you will be well below this after the storm.