Pests

Pests That Can Plague Your Corn Crop

Dan Corn, Field & Row Crops, This Land of Ours

Some pests that can plague your corn crop. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.

  • Pests
  • Pests
  • Pests

Some annoying problems when it comes to growing your own corn, include dealing with pesky insects.

If some of your kernels have germinated, but the seedlings seem weak, dig around in the soil a bit. You may be dealing with seed corn maggots or click beetle larvae. These jerks love to gnaw on sprouting seeds and new growth and will annihilate your seedlings. The best way to eliminate these pests is to rotate your crops.

Turn over the planting beds thoroughly in autumn so birds can eat the worms, maggots, and larvae nesting in them. Additionally, you can bait these worms and maggots with potatoes. Spear potato slices on sticks and nestle them a few inches deep into the corn bed soil.

If you find holes all over your corn plants’ leaves and stems, several different insects can cause those.

But the most common is the corn flea beetle. These small beasts take chomps out of corn leaves and transmit a nasty disease called Stewart’s wilt. It’s a bacterial infection that transforms your plants’ vascular systems into sludgy, slimy messes. Try using double-sided tape to keep them away. This tape will also catch grasshoppers, which like to eat corn leaves as well.

Listen to Cathy Isom’s This Land of Ours program here.

Pests That Can Plague Your Corn Crop