We are beginning to get reports of brown marmorated stink bugs in field corn in South Jersey. So far populations have mainly been confined to field edges near wooded areas. Counts have been as high as 3 to 5 per plant. I have heard of some fields with significantly higher counts. Populations in the interior of the fields were light. I have seen some isolated kernel damage. Stink bugs have not yet been encountered on adjacent soybean fields. Though we would expect to see movement into soybean fields eventually. In Maryland, there are currently evaluations of edge treatments to see how effective they are when kernel damage is occurring. As we have mentioned before we are still in the learning curve in trying to deal with this relatively new pest.
Bill Bamka
