These moisture-loving creatures are extremely sensitive to solar dehydration. With the cool, wet weather of late it is not surprising that we are seeing some fields with slug damage. Check under debris and clumps of soil. They are soft-bodied, legless, and can be greyish or mottled in appearance. A certain sign of slugs is a slimy, silver-coloured trail on the plants or soil.
Slugs feed on mould, decaying organic matter and plant foliage such as corn and soybeans.
Soybean damage can also resemble hail but often slugs will eat partly or completely through the leaves, leaving irregular holes. Leaf symptoms in corn and soybeans can have a skeletonized or webbed appearance. With the coming of warm weather corn and soybean plants should be able to outgrow any future feeding damage. In Ontario, there are presently no commercially available chemical controls for slugs in field corn. This is necessary since slugs often feed every two or three days.