Black Cutworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Flight Activity on a Golf Course in Central Alabama

Abstract

Black cutworm, Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel), is a major agricultural insect pest that attacks a wide variety of cultivated plants (Crumb 1929). The insect is also a serious pest that feeds on creeping bentgrass, Agrostis palustris Huds., the predominant turfgrass species on golf course putting greens. Feeding damage by black cutworm, especially older larvae (i.e., 4~6th instars) creates sunken pock-marks or suppressions, resulting in the reduction of uniformity and smoothness of putting green surfaces (Vittum et al. 1999). Although there was no significant relationship between black cutworm adult population and larval infestation on golf course putting greens (Hong & Williamson 2004), monitoring adult population can provide some insight on potential larval activities on putting greens (Potter 1998). Black cutworm is a migratory species (Showers 1997). In Wisconsin, moths are active in May through late Aug or early Sep (Hong & Williamson 2004), which is similar to the flight pattern observed in other northern areas (Levine et al. 1982). However, there is no flight activity during the winter in the northern United States. This is not surprising because generally black cutworm cannot overwinter north of Tennessee (Showers 1997). Of the few black cutworm flight activity studies on golf courses, most focused only on the northern areas. Thus, no references regarding black cutworm flight activity on a golf course are available for the southern United States where these insects overwinter and presumably have a longer flight period. The objective of our study was to investigate black cutworm flight activity on a golf course in the central Alabama. Black cutworm adults were monitored at the Grand National Golf Course, Opelika, Alabama. Two sticky traps (TRECE Inc., Salinas, California) baited with cap-type synthetic sex pheromone (TRECE; BCW 3141-25) were installed in trees at ca. 1.5 m above the turf surface (Hong & Williamson 2004) on 7 Apr 2010. The location of traps was less than 20 m from the creeping bentgrass, a preferred host, on putting greens. The traps and rubber septa containing the synthetic phero-