 So again, I'm Eric Shavey. I'm regional extension agent here in Northeast Alabama. And, you know, fall army worms are, this is time. We just wanna talk a little bit about scouting this morning, mainly in vegetable crops, but, you know, turf is one of those crops that they love. So we're gonna move on if my slide will advance here. All right, here we go. So I've gotta move some stuff around on my screen here. So in Alabama, the fall army worm, you know, it typically makes its appearance here in July and August. Can last on into September, but mainly July, early August. We see it start showing up here. Usually find it on our athletic turf, mostly well-managed lawns, athletic turf, bermuda grass, hay fields, millet. A lot of our folks up here, if you're planting a dove field to have a dove shoot or something, we'll plant millet. And they tend to get on that. Also, if you're planting for like duck ponds or any wildlife food plots, they will find that and they love it. It will devastate that crop. But, you know, this is a thing they will not bypass a fresh tomato. And so I've, you know, it always seems to happen when they're three or four days from being ripe. And this is a shot I got this week of some worms feeding there. And, you know, you've babied that tomato and got it through the 106 days of real field temperatures there. We've had the last couple of months. And then next thing you know, there it is right there in the top of it, just eating a little hole, having fun. So we typically need to look for these constantly. We never know when that moth is gonna come in. The good thing that you can is we are trapping, we are doing moth traps throughout the state. You can monitor that. Dr. A does a really good job of sending that out through our Facebook page and our newsletter. We can look at these moth flights. So main thing is scouting. When we scout for these, one of the best tactics is to go out late at night or late in the evening or even after dark. These moths are gonna typically fly late in the evening at night. And the worms, if they're active, they're gonna be out when it's a lot cooler. So in the vegetable garden, you know, I wanna, you're gonna have to check under the leaves, tops of tomato clusters. They seem to wanna get right around that cluster of those three big ripe tomatoes that you've been watching for a few weeks. Also one of those places that you can check is your field borders. I like looking on irrigation tanks, fence posts. If you've got irrigation risers out there, anything that's shiny, they tend to go for that. If you have some of the telephone companies, little risers, those gray risers you see on the side of the road or in the right of way, they'll lay their eggs on those for our athletic field folks. The first place I go to on a football field is the goal post. Goal post seems to be the place that they like to lay on. They'll be up under the edge of the crossbar on the goal post. And then they hatch and they fall straight down and start. Just wanna, just a few of those examples, you can see there's some water tanks, the shiny tops of the fence posts, cross member of that trellis there. You can find those egg clusters at times. And if you look on the picture on the left there, you've got Cherokee purples and there's a couple of moths that kind of slid in on us there and finally got a good picture and plants look healthy. Everything looks good, that tomato's ready, but guess what? Here in about five or six days, you're gonna be out there going, what is going on with these tomatoes? And there's gonna be small little holes or you'll start seeing where birds have pecked them. That's one thing that I've ran into lately is people call me and say, how do I keep birds out of my tomatoes? They're just pecking one little spot on them. And they're not eating the tomato, they're just pecking a spot. And it's causing that to me. I'm like, well, probably need to check for worms because that's what they're doing. They're eating a worm and they're putting that spot on your tomato. So just those spots that you need to be looking. Again, you can look on your riser pipes, any of those shiny areas that they're gonna lay those eggs on, any metal that's gonna heat up and help those eggs reach temperature to where they will hatch. And so main thing is be active. You're out there active, searching for those egg clusters, looking for the moths, then you can get your timing there. There is a blog that we have on our website and this is the link to it. It talks mainly about fall armyworm and pastures and hay fields. And a lot of our management and a lot of our products are the same. But as we look here, I wanted to show you this chart. Those first 10 days from that first instar to that fifth instar is your best time to control them. They get into that six, that last molt. He's, they're really, I say he, he, she, the larva there is trying to make that last molt where they can go into adulthood. And so they're really not feeding as heavily as they were in those first instars. But if we can get them in that first, second and third instar, we'll get better control of the worms. They are easily contained. We have both synthetic and non-synthetic compounds there. Some of those examples are BTs, the insecticidal soaps, neem, spinosid, then you got your pyrethroids. Bifantherin is one that turf folks can go to. It's a few, you may know it as talstar. There's been gallons of it sold. It's a great product. It's a quick kill on those safer Bermuda grass lawns and athletic turf. With that, I can just give you that, that brief, I'm watching my clock there, but I can give you that brief thing of be active. You know, if you're actively scouting, you're gonna catch these in, when they're at the small stage, small numbers and you can control them. If you're the one that goes out there once every week, then you're probably gonna lose some product to armyworm damage and other foliage feeders in that Lepidoptera species also. With that being said, kind of keep it short and sweet on the scouting, but we do have the beginning farmer program. We do have Operation Grow and download the new Farming Basics app. Dr. A plugged that. Also at the bottom is my contact information. If you have any questions or you see a cluster of eggs or a worm or anything, you want us to identify, snap a picture of it and you can email it or send it via text to that information there. And with that, I'm gonna stop sharing, Dr. A, and turn it back over.