Across the corn belt depending on time of year | The cause of your problem is the fact that you grow grass based crops on the field, due to the slope and erosion potential. White grub adults only lay eggs in grassy areas. Runout alfalfa is usually mostly grass. So, your choices are limited. No insecticides I am aware of are labeled for use in furrow for beans. Neonic seed treatments are of limited value against white grubs and are there mostly for seed corn maggot.
Are we talking a spring seeding of alfalfa or a fall seeding of alfalfa? Are we using an alfalfa-grass mixture for soil erosion until the alfalfa gets going? or a oat-alfalfa mix to protect the soil on the slope which winter kills the oats?
If late summer seeding is an option, I would leave the wheat until May. Cut it at boot stage (highest food value) and bale it for animal feed (or chop it). Terminate the crop with roundup to be less attractive to white adults egg lay in early June. Late summer, I would seed it with an alfalfa-oat mix so the quick germinating oats give erosion protection while the alfalfa gets established. Oats winter kill leaving you with clear seeded alfalfa with max erosion protection. |
Lost Wheat seeding to European Chafer
