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Gardeners can expect to find impatiens in short supply this year.
A fast-spreading disease is threatening the favorite flower, prompting some area garden centers to cut back on supplies or forgo selling the plants altogether.
The disease, impatiens downy mildew, is caused by a fungus-like organism. The disease stunts the plants’ growth, causes the leaves to turn yellow and drop, and eventually causes the plants to collapse.
If you are interested in bats, plan to attend this eXtension webinar on bats and bat management, April 4 at 10 AM Central Time..
Presenter: Scott Hygnstrom, Professor and Extension Wildlife Specialist, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Certified Wildlife Biologist and Leader of the eXtension CoP for Wildlife Damage Management
A special seminar series on the topic of “Plant Recognition and Identification Technology” will be held later this month at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Three well-known speakers will talk about the latest in agricultural automation, computer vision for species recognition, and challenges and opportunities for robotic weeding. Part of the focus of these seminars is to build collaborative relationships in this rapidly advancing field of research.
Please plan on joining experts at Lincoln or online for one or all of the seminars. For information about the seminar series, visit http://bigideaseminars.unl.edu/home, which has all of the details.
Livestock producers may not be able to see the difference between stable flies and other flies at a distance, but they can definitely see the stable flies’ effect on their cattle as the animals stop grazing and bunch together to minimize the number of bites they’re getting.
By Sharon Durham
January 11, 2013
By examining what lady beetles eat, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are learning more about the movement of these beneficial insects in farm fields—and whether they’ll actively feed on crop pests.
Spores from Asian soybean rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi) pose a serious threat to soybean production in the United States because they can be blown great distances by the wind.
When soybean rust was discovered in Paraguay in 2001 and in Brazil in 2002, researchers in the United States began preparing for the first appearance of the disease, which has the potential to totally decimate an entire crop.
From Southeast Farm Press
When it comes to soybean cyst nematode (SCN), which costs U.S. soybean farmers $1 billion annually in crop losses, farmers can never have enough potential solutions.
Twice recently, research funded by the United Soybean Board (USB) and soy checkoff has yielded potential breakthroughs in fighting off this devastating disease.
From Delta Farm Press
For 50 years, the world’s soybean crop has depended on the use of cyst nematode-resistant varieties of beans, but no one knew how these plants fought off the nematode pests. Now, the secrets of resistant soybean plants are finally coming to light.
Two to three millimeters long, the parasitoid wasp Habrobracon hebetor is a top candidate for use in programs to biologically control Indianmeal moths and other stored-product pests. But despite the prospects for reduced insecticide use and product losses, the approach has yet to gain traction commercially, in part because of the lack of an efficient method of stockpiling the wasp.
