Guess they wanted a drink after eating your plot.

nice write up from Alabama A&M and Auburn on army worms. Show them in all stages from worm to moth.

http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1019/ANR-1019.pdf

Well I went to my lease today to check on the fields there we have about 15 fields and 14 of them look like they were never planted, the other one which is on top of nob in as poor of soil as you can find anywhere looks great. These were all planted Labor Day weekend and two weeks ago were about an inch or two tall and just as pretty and green as you could ask for. Then bam today bare dirt the only thing green in plots is some morning glories. Been planting green fields for 30 years and never seen anything like it. I don't think there is no way army worms are responsible for all of those fields. I really have no explanation on what could have caused this. A lot of time and money down the drain. And now gonna have to spend some more and try it again is all I know to do. Pretty disgusted right now.

Definitely army worms. The exact reason we never plant until October

Give it 10 days or so and check it again

Was the plant's just gone, or was it plowed up, like you said in the OP? Army worms will eat it up but wont plow it up.

IF it was Army worms - does such a field need to be treated with an insecticide before replanting, and what type of insecticide should be used to kill/prevent them?

Eric Church

Don't know about preventing them but Sevin will kill them.

Orrmy wurms.......

If they got on it just as it was coming up and 1-2" tall and it's completely gone now, I'd say definitely army worms. We sodded roughly 25 acres of bermuda on a range job at Eglin. Got it established and fertilized. Looked gorgeous, lush deep green, thick enough for a golf course when I checked it on a Thursday afternoon. Came back toward the middle of the following week and there was nothing but brown stems about 1/4" tall as far as the eye could see. Never underestimate how quickly army worms can eat up an area. Like I said, 25 acres pretty much completely gone in less than 6 days.

I cleared a patch on the side of my house this summer, subsequently planted bermuda, and was watering for about 21 days. I started seeing these big orangish-brown moths rising up every time I watered the seeds/seedlings and didn't know what they were. I started looking into it...

Well, once the seedlings were about 1.5" tall I noticed the whole patch seemed to be getting a bit brown, even though I was watering daily.

I went out one morning to turn the sprinkler on, then walked over to the patch, and it was like the ground was moving!!! It was COVERED UP with army worms! Them sumbitches had eaten almost every shoot down to about 1/8". No wonder it looked peaked.

I sprayed the whole patch with some Ortho and it seemed to do them in. Patch is only about 30' x 10', so nothing too big. I still see the moths every now and then, but I hose em down with high pressure water.

I'll call in the air assault. Karate out of the plane. Had him on some today.

Oh I fux'd them up real good...Marine style!!!

Yea the local Ag pilot spraying them.