Welcome to the University of Minnesota as strategic farming field notes Program. I'm Anthony Hansen, Regional Extension Educator in integrated pest management. Support for this program is also provided by the Minnesota Corn Research and Promotion Council, as well as the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council. Unfortunately, recording for July 30th, 2022 isn't available due to some technical issues that we had.
So here's just a quick summary of what was covered at the webinar for that day. And we will have online postings on some of the text and what we covered. To start off, we had Dr. Jeff Coulter on to talk about what's going on with corn pollination.
A bit of a current status update, and then also what might be happening in the coming weeks, especially junit overall been a pretty dry month and fairly warm to to the point that we are actually coming ahead of average on growing degree days for corn so far. So some fields that were planted on time, we're seeing pollination occurring already or just starting to in about the next week or so. But because of variability, we had to planting date.
There are definitely some fields that are going to be further behind than others. But overall with the temperatures were expected to see coming up, pollination should be rolling along pretty well without any significant issues with too much heat occurring, since we're going to be in about the lower nineties or so, we are, however, starting to see some drought conditions start to merge in some areas of the state.
And this could delay or affect pollination in terms of final yield that we will see in the crop. So very much depends on what part of the safe people are in and what their fields are looking like for drought conditions. We also had Seth Ghibli with the Environmental Protection Agency on to talk about atrazine. This is a broad spectrum herbicide that is beginning a look again in terms of water quality issues and potentially being able to mitigate those.
So currently the EPA is proposing some restrictions to the use of atrazine, mostly to prevent run-off. So there is a 60 day comment period open to the public that closes on September 6th at 2022. So he suggested that if atrazine restrictions are going to affect anyone, that they should check out the public comment period and submit their comments so they can work them into any recommendations that are coming out.
And just as a quick final note, we are starting to see some insect issues either continue across the state or starting to see some just emerging a little bit. So first off, the big question that comes up quite a bit around this time of year is soybean aphid. And we are seeing some across the state infested and soybeans, but generally not at high numbers. There are however, a few pockets of the state where populations are increasing.
Now it's going to be pretty early to be treating for soybean aphid, but keep an eye on those populations as they start to grow more in later July. Alfalfa weevil has also been a concern for some growers across the state, especially around Central Minnesota. Now some growers have seen damage, especially in their first and sometimes second cutting alfalfa weevil. But if you are considering an application now, be sure to actually go out and check the field that the alfalfa weevil is still present.
Larvae can cause damage in the field, but adults are going to be dormant this time of year and they're not feeding are causing significant damage either. Now normally this time of year you're only going to find adults. You're usually not going to be concerned about alfalfa weevil or treating for it any further. However, there have been some reports and parts of the state that growers are finding very early instar larvae are very young ones that have been laid recently.
Well, that's not typical for what we see with that past. But there may be some issues with either new strains coming in or some other environmental conditions that a delayed emergence of this one. So just be sure to go out there and Sculpt. If you do find larvae, check that they're actually at threshold levels because you don't want to be spraying when that species is on its way out for the season instead, and you're not getting a return on investment of the insecticide.
And also just a general reminder that court purify us. We've had questions about that as well. It is not allowed for any agricultural use, even if you did have it on hand for a previous year. This is definitely come up a few times and questions that I've gotten. So whether it's alfalfa weevil or upcoming applications potentially for soybean aphid. Be sure that you're following current Pesticide Regulations.
Avoid ones that are no longer allowed such as core pure PFOS, but then also double-check and the label that it's actually approved for application on that crop because of field school on the St. Paul campus next week, our next episode of field notes will be on the 27th of July. So stay tuned for that episode and we'll see you in about two weeks.