On hogs that can he reflooded.- — Flood for ten hours at night as soon as the net 

 count (page 3) shows treatment is necessary. 



SPRAYING OR DUSTING 



What has been said of the black cutworm in regard to spraying and dusting 

 applies to this worm also. 



BAITING — See page 26. 



Fall Armyworm ^^ 



This insect worked havoc in New Jersey in 191631 on several bogs bared of their 

 winter water in mid-July. It sometimes injures grasses greatly on Cape Cod, and 

 It appeared in damaging numbers on several widely separated bogs there in late 

 July and early August, 1948, after removal of summer root-grub flowages. It 

 attacks later than the other cranberry cutworms and is the only one, except the 

 black cutworm, likely ever to infest a Cape bog seriously when a long flood is let 

 off after July 20. It will not attack a bog drained much before July. 



Distribution and Food Plants 



This pest occurs yearly in Central America, Mexico, the West Indies, and 

 South America and its worst outbreaks may originate in those regions. It is evi- 

 dently a native of tropical or subtropical America. Apparently it cannot sur- 

 vive the winter north of southern Georgia or central Texas. In the years of 

 its great abundance in the South great numbers of the moths fly northward, 

 sometimes for hundreds of miles, and lay their eggs. These hatch and the 

 worms develop into moths which again fly northward before laying. In this 

 way the insect in favorable summers spreads over most of the eastern two-thirds 

 of the United States and even to Canada before fall frosts halt it. It some- 

 times does immense damage to crops throughout this range. Its favorite food 

 plants are grasses such as quack or crab grass, Bermuda grass, blue grass, Johnson 

 grass, etc. It seriously injures alfalfa, clover, corn, cotton, cowpea, kafir, millet, 

 oats, rice, sorghum, sugar cane, and wheat. It sometimes attacks beet, bean, 

 buckwheat, cabbage, grape, pecan, pepper, peanut, potato, sweet potato, straw- 

 berry, spinach, tobacco, tomato, turnip, and other plants. In greenhouses, it is 

 destructive to gladiolus, chrysanthemum, geranium, and dahlia. 



The worms eagerly devour cutworms of their own and other species. They work 

 rather freely in the daytime, even in sunny weather. 



There usually are five broods a year in the Gulf States, but only one appears in 

 any one place in the North. 



When Outhrea\s may he Expected 



General invasions of this pest occur nearly always after cold, wet springs. 

 In parts of the Mississippi Valley it is called the "overflow worm," for the 

 farmers attribute its outbreaks to the overflowing of the great river. There 

 is evidence to support this belief. Cold and dampness seem to destroy the 

 insect enemies that ordinarily control the pest but do not harm the worm it- 

 self. This may explain the outbreaks that occur almost yearly in scattered 

 places in the South after periods of heavy local rains. 



so Laphygma frugiperda (S. & A.). 



^^ Proc. Amer. Cranberry Growers' Assoc. 47, p. 11, 1917. 



[34] 



