CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) Some farmers in southeastern New Mexico are pleased with recent rains amid persistent drought. However, now they have another threat to their farms a potential outbreak of cutworms. The Carlsbad Current-Argus reports that farmers are seeing more cutworms in their hayfields as a result of the welcome rain.
Jane Pierce, entomologist at the New Mexico State University Agricultural Science Center in Artesia, says she is getting an average of 10 variegated cutworms per night in pheromone traps at the center's farm and commercial fields. She said recent cool, wet weather might cause higher than usual survival of cutworms that are destructive to alfalfa.
Three years ago, similar weather resulted in a severe outbreak of cutworms south of Carlsbad that wiped out the alfalfa crop.
