The spring of 2009 will go down as one of the cooler wetter springs in sometime.Most of the Southern Ontario soybean crop was planted between May 20 and June 15.Cool damp seedbeds have lead to soybean emergence to be very slow often taking up to 3 weeks to establish a stand. This slow emergence has lead to heavier insect pressure than we've seen for years.Wireworm , seedcorn maggot, White grub, millipede, garden symphalian, and slugs have all been reported to be more active.Insect pressure has been so high at times that even Cruiser treated seed has encountered some damage.

These shots were taken on a farm south of Strathroy investigated by Pioneer sales rep Dave McEachren.They serve to illustrate just how heavy slug pressure has been this year.Replanting from slug damage in this case was not required but there were pocket areas in the field where stands were reduced to below 100,000.

Slugs just love a cool damp spring.With lots of residue on the soil surface from last years bumper corn crop these critters are able to hide under the trash in the heat of the day and then come out in full force at night to chew on the young soybean plants leaves.

There was plenty of evidence in this field of where they had chewed the leaves entirely off and killed plants.Slugs can be a real menace in No-till fields especially where heavy residues remain on the soil surface.Couple this with a cool damp spring like 2009 and you've got trouble .Though this grower escaped needing replant many others have not been so fortunate.There is no chemical or seed treatment available today for slug control.Mixed results have been reported in spraying a mixture of water and 28% on slug infested fields at dusk. Some growers have been trying to alleviate their slug problem by using different pieces of equipment to mix and stir the residue to help dry it out and thereby force the slugs deeper into the soil profile.