Results of a three year survey to establish a base line for native stinkbugs and detect arrival of invasive pests in Kentucky grown field crops

Kentucky is surrounded on all sides by invasive insect species of importance in our field crops. Specifically we are interested in two groups of pests in corn and soybean. The “variant” western corn rootworm Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte is spreading eastward and southward in Illinois and Indiana. This insect is a pest of first year corn by overcoming crop rotation as a control technique. The pest has succeeded in this through adapting the behavior of laying its eggs in soybeans in the year preceding corn production. Two exotic stink bugs that may be of importance to corn and soybean production are found in adjacent states. The Brown marmorated stink bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stal) is known to be present in bordering states of IL, IN, WV, VA and TN while the redbanded stink bug, Piezodorus guildinii (Westwood) is known to be present in TN and MO. A third exotic bug the bean plataspid or Kudzu bug, Megacopta cribraria (Fab.), discovered in Georgia in 2009 has been spreading rapidly toward Kentucky as well.  Each of these is a potential threat to field crop production in Kentucky. Our objectives in this study are twofold: (1) to detect the presence of invasive pests before they become a significant problem and (2) to develop a robust, baseline data set describing the current pest situation prior to invasion by these new exotic pests.