Seed Treatment for Control of Early-Season Pests of Corn and Its Effect on Yield1

Various seed treatments were evaluated for their effect on early-season corn pests. Imidacloprid at low and high rates (Gaucho and Prescribe , respectively) and thiamethoxam (Cruiser ) at low and high rates were effective in reducing populations and exhibited systemic insecticidal activity against chinch bugs, flea beetle, wireworm, white grub, and southern corn leaf beetle. Another systemic neonicotinoid, clothianidin, was tested and was effective against these pests at all rates tested. Tefluthrin (Proshield or Force ), a pyrethroid, was tested for control of white grub, southern corn leaf beetle, flea beetle, and chinch bug and was only effective against white grub because of a lack of systemic insecticidal activity against the latter three pests. Fipronil seed treatment also was effective in controlling white grub and southern corn leaf beetle but was not effective against flea beetles or chinch bugs. In general, systemic seed treatments were as effective in controlling soilinhabiting insects (wireworms and white grubs) as the infurrow granular treatments. Our tests suggest that seed treatments, especially those with systemic activity, show great promise for growers dealing with a variety of soilinhabiting and early-season foliar-feeding insect pests. Because of the convenience of seed treatments, they will be especially useful in areas where one or more of these early-season pests are chronic problems. These treatments also will be useful on transgenic corn used for corn rootworm control to control these “secondary” pests that are not affected by the transgenic corn.