Battling Fall Army Worms

We are adding some new employees this week, 1 million of them!  We purchased 1 million Trichogramma brassicae wasp eggs to help us battle the Fall Army Worms.  Last year was the worst year in 14 years for Fall Army Worms and they fed on our forage sorghum and then destroyed our first planting of ryegrass.  So this year we are trying a biological solution.  These tiny tiny wasps (their wings are 1/50 of an inch in length) lay their eggs into the eggs of caterpillars such as the army worms.  The eggs quickly hatch and the resulting tiny larvae eats the army worm eggs.  The wasp then develops from the larvae and seeks out other caterpillar eggs to lay their eggs in.  Yes, we will take out some butterflys and other moths in the process but they should be local to these fields and do not spread far.  Also the wasps cannot handle our winters so we don’t have to worry about them becoming a larger problem.  The 1 million eggs should be enough to control the establishment of the army worms for at least 2-3 weeks and if they have more eggs to continue developing in they will last longer.  We found army worms in our forage sorghum last week and should see our wasps eggs arrive early next week to begin their battle.  Hopefully we won’t have to spray insecticide this year!  Will keep you posted.   They also work in gardens to battle tomato horn worms and all types of worms, here’s the website I ordered them from if you are interested.   www.buglogical.co