Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** corn earworm is the most…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** corn earworm is the most significant pest of sweet corn in the US. Warming winters could result in worsening corn earworm pressure, as populations emerge earlier, increase faster, and more rapidly develop insecticide resistance. Best management practices are needed to deal with the evolving corn earworm threat, especially in the environmentally sensitive eastern US where current monitoring and management approaches provide unpredictable and insufficient protection, reducing sweet corn profitability via both unexpected losses and unnecessary applications. Producers face near zero tolerance for ear damage. This project aims to improve our knowledge of corn earworm pest pressure, delivering risk maps and models that help to anticipate and avoid crop loss as well as look to future changes due to climate and resistance. This will be accomplished by measuring local overwintering success as well as early season activity and migration patterns, developing a spread model, and monitoring resistance to plant incorporated BT toxins and foliar insecticides. To improve integrated pest management of corn earworm, we will develop best practices for trapping adult moths and system-specific dynamic thresholds that help producers reliably predict risk and make appropriate management decisions. We will also optimize management programs to effectively manage pests while mitigating impacts to natural enemies and pollinators. Their cost-effectiveness and return on investment will be determined. Accessible and relevant resources will be developed and disseminated to communicate results from this project. This will be accomplished with a centralized website, regular extension networking and information sharing calls, annual webinars, on-farm research and demonstrations, and collaborations with stakeholders including our advisory panel. We will solicit feedback from the advisory panel and other stakeholders throughout the project to evaluate project deliverables and impact, compiling our findings into impact statements. Interview approaches will be used to increase our understanding of stakeholder networks and decision making to help identify opportunities to expand our network and reach as well as increase adoption of best practices. Our ultimate goal is to help reduce corn earworm losses and management expenses, increasing sweet corn profitability and preserving consumer access to local vegetables. This work will protect applicators, pollinators, consumers, and the environment by encouraging judicious use of broad-spectrum insecticide sprays. We will also improve regional applied research and extension capacity, with a focus on increased efficiency and delivery of tools that will be updated and supported for the long term. In the long term, our project will help sweet corn production become more productive, resilient against climate change, sustainable, and competitive in the global market.