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From the Tennessee Daily Reflector
Biologists will release two new predatory beetle species in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to battle a pest that has devastated hemlock forests.
The park has been using predatory beetles that feed exclusively on hemlock woolly adelgids (uh-DEL’-jidz) since 2002. Biologists hope releasing the two new species will enhance biological control of the invasive pest. Both of the species to be released come from Osaka region in Japan, which is where the adelgid strain in the park originated.
More than a half-million predatory beetles have been released in the Smokies in the last decade. Biologists also control the pest by spraying horticultural oil on trees near roads and injecting systemic insecticides into the soil and stems of hemlocks in the park.
From the Roanoke Times
On Friday a Virginia Tech research team working to stop destruction of Appalachia’s iconic hemlock trees unleashed a new microscopic weapon in the fight against the tree-killing woolly adelgid.
Tech entomology professor Scott Salom and graduate student Katlin Mooneyham seeded infested hemlocks on private property near Mountain Lake in Giles County with about 1,000 laboratory-grown eggs of the Laricobius osakensis, a newly discovered beetle species from Osaka, Japan, that preys almost exclusively on the woolly adelgid.
The first backcountry emerald ash borer infestation has been confirmed in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Most corn insect control decisions are made before the planter hits the field. “Of course, decisions to control stalk borers in non-Bt corn, as well as cutworms and stink bugs in all corn, are made in-season,” says Auburn University entomologist Kathy Flanders.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has awarded $19 million to research and extension programs to help organic producers and processors grow and market high quality organic agricultural products. About $4 million of that will go to researchers in the Southern region.
This post comes from Scott Stewart’s UTCrops News Blog. Predators are important in IPM, so I thought this was worth sharing.
Assassin bug attacking a lady beetle
The critter pictured right is one of the several kinds of assassin bugs found in field crops (family Reduviidae). Assassin bugs are excellent predators of many insect pests, but this guy didn’t get the memo and is eating an adult lady beetle (another beneficial insect).
Assassin bugs are pretty large, and thus can take down some big prey such as large caterpillars. Of course, the immature stages are smaller and feed on smaller prey. The species pictured belongs to the genus Zelus, and it is commonly seen in soybean and cotton. The adult is about one-inch long. Assassin bugs will bite, so handle carefully!
The following information was included in a fruit and vegetable newsletter for Tennessee, but it contains good information for growers in areas susceptible to tomato spotted wilt virus and to spotted wing drosophila.
The development of herbicide resistance in pigweed has created many problems, but none more severe than in the area of economics. Andrew Wargo oversees 15,000 acres of land in southeast Arkansas, working with the operation’s tenants, a 30,000-bale cotton gin and other business activities. Wargo discussed what herbicide resistance has meant for Arkansas producers during a panel that also included the University of Tennessee’s Larry Steckel and the University of Illinois’ Aaron Hager. The panel was part of the 2012 Ag Issues Forum sponsored by Bayer CropScience at Commodity Classic in Nashville, Tenn.
