Sweet corn - solutions for pests?

Devrim

Hi

First post on here!

My sweet corn has turned into a haven for pests - two different types of caterpillar (I think) and a black flying bug too (see photos - couldn't capture the flying one). Its also weak and struggling to stay upright.

Is there anything I can do at this stage? I figure spraying anything isnt a good idea given the silks are being pollinated?

Any advice would be helpful - I'm tempted to give up given how much water the corn is using!

Thanks

Dovefromabove

Hi @Devrim and welcome to the forum 

Are the caterpillars doing a lot of damage?   It's hard to tell from the photo.

To be perfectly honest I've never scrutinised my sweetcorn that closely, I just let it all happen and have always had good results.  I find that the birds, wasps, hoverflies etc keep caterpillars down to reasonable numbers on most things (other than brassicas which I net).  

One year the wind bashed the sweetcorn about a bit so I put a cane at each corner of the block and string between and that stopped the problem.  Would that help yours?

Devrim

Hello and thank you for these encouraging words!

They're actually not doing too much damage as far as I can tell at this stage. I thought that once the caterpillars got into the ear, they would gobble it all up so there wouldn't be much point continuing to water. But I will keep going and put up some canes for support as you said. I've never grown sweet corn before so it's a steep learning curve!