Seedcorn Maggots: What You Need to Know

Below-ground pests like seedcorn maggots usually strike early in the season. By the time they’re detected, it’s often too late to salvage your pulse crops. However, with effective prevention strategies, you can protect your fields from planting through emergence, ensuring a healthy start.

How Seedcorn Maggots Impact Pulse Crops

Seedcorn maggots are the larvae of adult flies that resemble common houseflies with dark gray bodies, black legs and transparent wings. In late April, adult flies lay their eggs in the soil where they hatch into small, pale maggots about 1/4 inch long within 2 to 4 days. The maggots’ lifecycle lasts 2 to 3 weeks.

These maggots move easily in cool, wet conditions, feeding on developing seed and seedlings. This can lead to stunted plant development and impact pulse crop yield potential. Adult flies prefer fields with decaying vegetation or high organic matter, making untilled fields more vulnerable to infestation. Fields with a history of infestations are more susceptible to future damage from seedcorn maggots.

Seedcorn maggots harm young pulse crops by feeding on the seed germ and burrowing into seeds, eating the inside and leaving behind empty shells. They also feed on the stems of the seedlings, weakening and wilting the plants — sometimes leading to plant death.

This damage creates bare spots in the field, prevents seed germination and reduces plant emergence. No rescue treatments are available, so it’s too late to save affected crops once seedcorn maggots are established.

How to Prevent Seedcorn Maggots

Check for seedcorn maggots when preparing to plant your pulse crops. As you scout, look for eggs in the soil. Seedcorn maggot eggs appear as small, brown cylinders resembling tiny footballs. Early detection can help prevent an infestation before it affects your crop.

To avoid a seedcorn maggot infestation, consider delaying planting until the soil dries out and warms up. These pests thrive in cool, moist conditions, so warmer, drier soil conditions are less favorable for maggot development. Additionally, planting treated seeds can suppress these pests and be an effective preventive measure.

Now Available: An Option to Suppress Seedcorn Maggots

A seed treatment solution is now available for use on both cereal and pulse crops. Equento^® insecticide seed treatment, powered by PLINAZOLIN^® technology, helps reduce the impact of seedcorn maggots by suppressing them from damaging seeds and seedlings. Equento offers a more crop-flexible and compatible option to manage below-ground pests by helping pulse crops emerge evenly with strong stand establishment, setting the crop up to reach its full yield potential for stands that help deliver to your bottom line.

Learn more about how Equento can help save the day against early-season below-ground pests in both pulse crops and cereal crops.