2021 regional corn rootworm monitoring network summary available

In 2021, we initiated the first year of the regional corn rootworm monitoring network with the Corn Rootworm IPM working group. This working group was formed to address regional concerns as corn rootworm populations continue to overcome Bt corn hybrids and become more challenging to manage. The working group is composed of university, industry, and government personnel from at least 12 U.S. states and 5 provinces in Canada. We worked together last spring to develop a few shared objectives for the corn rootworm monitoring network:

1. Increase scouting efforts in corn;
2. Understand changes in populations between years;
3. Raise awareness about changes in corn rootworm activity and species composition; and
4. Promote the use of appropriate management strategies based on scouting information.

Each area received help from volunteer cooperators, who placed traps in fields of interest to them. We provided free yellow sticky traps in exchange for information about the field. More details on the protocol and data collection are provided in the report, along with a summary of the data collected by the regional network: https://cornrootworm.extension.iastate.edu/adult-trapping-network. Scroll down to the "Reports" heading to find a PDF of the report. Since 2021 was the first year of our regional trapping effort, we focused on increasing scouting efforts for corn rootworm and promoting the use of appropriate management strategies, but we plan to continue this network to address changes in populations that may be occurring in Iowa and beyond.