The viruses, strawberry mottle virus and strawberry mild yellow edge virus, were found on plants that originated in a nursery in the Great Valley area of Nova Scotia. Three known Kentucky growers received a shipment of plants from this nursery, but only one of them has reported symptoms of the viruses.

“These are not new viruses, but the outbreak is so severe because plants from this area of Nova Scotia were distributed throughout the U.S.,” Gauthier said.

These viruses work together to reduce or eliminate yields. If the viruses are found, growers should plan for at least a 25 percent reduction in yields. While the viruses infect the plants, the fruit is still edible, and consumers should not notice a difference in taste or appearance.

Symptoms of the viruses include poor plant growth in spots or in entire fields, older leaves turning bright red, yellowing along plant edges or on emerging leaves and dead plant tissue along leaf margins.

Common aphids can transmit these viruses to healthy plants. Lambsquarter, a common weed, is also a host for the strawberry mottle virus. This alternate host can allow the virus to survive in fields from season to season. Lambsquarter infected with strawberry mottle virus may not show symptoms.

If growers suspect their plants are infected by either of these viruses, they should contact their county extension agent for confirmation. Gauthier encourages growers to destroy all symptomatic plants as soon as possible. If growers cannot destroy infected plants, they should carefully manage aphid vectors and implement a strict weed management program. Infected perennial strawberries should be removed at season’s end.

Contact: Nicole Ward Gauthier, 859-218-0720

By: Katie Pratt, 859-257-8774

Fall armyworm moth trap counts at the UK Research and Education Center in Princeton reached record numbers on two different occasions during the summer of 2012. The fall armyworms arrived in July in Western Kentucky, earlier than ever before, and were the largest and longest lasting population in 10 years of data collection. Following the outbreaks, UK extension entomologist Doug Johnson and Patty Lucas, IPM extension specialist, conducted an online survey to determine the value of the early warning system.

The survey had 39 individual responses representing 24 Kentucky counties and locations in Illinois, Ohio and Indiana. The respondents said UK’s early warning system protected more than $1.6 million in crop yields and saved producers more than $270,000 in unnecessary pesticide applications.

Additionally, 12 percent of responders reported they did not receive the early warning and lost at least $18,000 in crops due to fall armyworm damage, because they did not scout for the pest or make a timely insecticide application.

“It is very clear from these data that early warning of an insect infestation provides a significant financial advantage to producers, and being unaware of early warnings can result in a significant financial penalty,” Johnson said. “Although our respondent sample size was small, it does indicate that the early warnings were used by a significant portion of agricultural and horticultural interests, which allowed them to make on-time, real-time management decisions for control of this pest.”

The fall armyworm is a pest of many crops including alfalfa, row crops, tobacco, cucumbers and tomatoes, but it prefers grasses. The moths migrate from the South each summer, and the worms are active in the state from the mid-summer until the first killing frost. Survey respondents reported most of the damage from the 2012 outbreak was in grass used for hay and pastures.

About 85 percent of the 2012 survey respondents said they received warning about the high trap counts. Survey respondents listed Kentucky Pest News, extension specialists, UK’s Grain Crops Update Blog and county extension agents as the main ways they received the early warning.

Of the respondents, nearly 45 percent said, due to the early warning system, they scouted their fields and determined they did not have a fall armyworm problem. As a result, respondents reported 22,775 acres were not treated with a pesticide application. This not only saved producers money but also had human health and environmental benefits. It reduced the risk of pesticide exposure to handlers and applicators as well as beneficial insects including natural predators and pollinators.

Of the producers who found fall armyworms in their fields, 47 percent said the early warning system gave them enough time to make a timely control decision to prevent crop damage or loss.

Survey participants included producers, consultants, extension agents, pesticide industry representatives and farm supply business personnel.

Contact: Doug Johnson, 270-365-7541, ext. 214
Patty Lucas, 270-365-7541, ext. 218

Written by: Katie Pratt, 859-257-8774

http://news.ca.uky.edu/article/uk-insect-pest-early-warning-system-benefits-producers

Kudzu bug activity has heightened with the warm weather in the past two weeks.

Adults are flying from over-wintering sites and searching for their reproductive hosts, wisteria, kudzu and soybeans.

In the meantime, they can be found nearly everywhere. I have seen photos of these insects on nearly every plant you can imagine, as well as the sides of houses and pickup trucks. Insects likely aren’t feeding or reproducing on these things (certainly not feeding on houses), so property owners will have to remain patient, while growers who planted soybeans on the early side might be getting a bit jumpy with the influx of adults into their field.

Soybeans this early in the season are incredibly resilient. Combining information from at least 20 seed treatment and foliar spray trials over the last 10 years from Virginia and North Carolina, we have never documented a single yield boost (see previous blog article), even though the seed treatments are effective for reducing things like thrips and three-cornered alfalfa hopper (seed treatments are not effective, however, against kudzu bug).

The point is that we can document injury to seedlings from things like thrips and protect them with things like seed treatments and foliar over-sprays. When you put the combine in the field, it doesn’t make a bit of difference. The soybeans plants always seem to compensate. Every year I become more and more confident of this.

Based on this, my guess is that a treatment threshold for kudzu bug for seedling soybeans is going to be drastically higher than it would be later in the season, when soybeans are producing pods or filling seeds.

We do have one bit of datum to back this up. Based on an experiment in Georgia where kudzu bugs were infested at V2-V3, 5 bugs per plant seemed like a safe number to effects on the plant and to preserve yield. This is the preliminary threshold that Georgia is recommending for seedling soybeans.

Let me stress that this is a preliminary threshold that will absolutely change as we get more information on this.

The preliminary North Carolina threshold is 5 bugs per seedling, until plants are one foot tall. Fields infested at these levels will likely be a rare situation.

Then, the threshold will change to 10 bugs per plant for plants from 1-2 feet tall. The established threshold of one nymph per sweep (one swoosh of the net) should be used for plants above 2 feet tall. Plants should be sampled at least 50 feet from the edge of the field.

The reason for this is that the adults have an extended migration period (6-8 weeks) and colonize field edges first. If you sample the edges, chances are you will make a spray decision too soon before the migration is over.

Let me also tell you a cautionary tale. A North Carolina grower noticed kudzu bugs on the edge of his April-planted beans in May 2012. They had not yet infested the interior portions of the field.

He opted to spray. He then had to spray again in June, as the adults re-migrated into the field. Additionally, sprays don’t kill eggs, so these hatched into nymphs. The grower then had to spray a third time in June, as spider mites were flared in the field from the lack of beneficial insects.

We want to avoid these costly situations while still preserving our yield.

Yes, those are stink bugs in your wheat field. No, you probably shouldn’t start spraying just yet.

That’s the assessment of Gus Lorenz, Extension entomologist for the University of Arkansas.

After weeks of significant rain and mud, “I guess it got dry enough to walk some fields today,” Lorenz said. “My phone was ringing off the wall with calls, mostly about stink bugs in wheat.”

It’s good that farmers are paying attention to those pests, but Lorenz cautions that it’s not yet time to break out the pyrethroids. That’s because the stink bugs – and, he notes, the true armyworm – are not yet being found in numbers that justify the expense and effort of spraying.

“There’s an occasional brown stink bug or sometimes a rare green stink bug, but mostly they are rice stink bugs,” he said of the insects being brought in from the field. “We are seeing fairly noticeable numbers of these stink bugs, but I haven’t seen or heard from anyone of the levels that I consider worth spraying.”

Stinkbug threshold

How many Stink bugs is that? The generally accepted threshold is one stinkbug per five to 10 heads while the wheat is in the milk to soft dough stage, which is where most of the Arkansas crop seems to be right now. That’s when they can do the most damage, said Lorenz.

Once you get into the hard dough stage, the stink bug can’t damage the kernel anymore. Still, said Lorenz, one bug per five to 10 heads isn’t really a lot, “so don’t get too excited.”

If you are seeing stink bugs, Lorenz advised farmers to pay careful attention to exactly where they are cropping up. The highest concentrations, he believes, are currently being found at the edges of fields – particularly in proximity to levees, tree lines and pastures. Move farther into the field and the stink bug count should drop off precipitously.

If a grower does decide to spray, though, Lorenz suggests that only spraying the field borders could be the best approach, with two passes sufficient to do the job. As always, follow the instructions on the label.

True armyworms

The other pest that’s starting to be found is the true armyworm, not unusual in the wheat crop at this time of year.

“The difference this year is they are still small and haven’t moved up the plant at all,” said Lorenz, “one of the few advantages of a cold spring, I guess.”

The worms that are being spotted range from about one-eighth to one-quarter of an inch in length and are remaining low in the canopy. Numbers seem to range from a low of one or two, to a high of four or five, per square foot. Most importantly, there hasn’t been any real evidence of cutting heads, which means there’s not any point at spraying yet.

“You are making money by not spraying,” said Lorenz. “We worked hard on that threshold, and I have every confidence that the yields are maintained once the wheat reaches the soft dough, even if they eat the flag leaf.”

If the populations had hit earlier, for instance at bloom or during the milk stage, that could have caused yield loss. But at the soft dough stage, “we should be fine.” All bets are off if the armyworms start cutting heads, though, at which point pyrethroids are again the product of choice. However, growers need to be sure there is a legitimate need before they start paying for spraying.

“I guess the gist of all this is scout closely and don’t get caught up in thinking you need to spray because there are a few pests out there,” Lorenz said.

For more information about pest management, visit www.uaex.edu, or contact your county Extension agent.

Winning soybean yield contests is a common occurrence in recent years for Eastover, S.C., grower Jason Carter.

But winning last year’s contest with a rare and new-to-South Carolina insect handicap was an adventure he doesn’t want to try again.

Carter says he found the rare Dectes stem borer in his soybeans and finding out what was killing his beans proved to be about as frustrating as dealing with the problem.

“Our soybean crop looked outstanding from the start last year, and I was expecting to harvest 70-80 bushels per acre under irrigation and 60-70 dryland,” Carter says.

“Based on the season we were having and past production levels, those kinds of yields seemed reasonable,” he adds.

Carter has won the state soybean yield championship several times in his 17-year farming history, but says winning the yield contest in the irrigated category, with the problems he had with Dectes stem borers, was unexpected.

“Last year our dryland beans out-yielded our irrigated beans, and most of that was because of the problem we had with Dectes borers,” Carter says.

“The soybean crop looked so good last year, then I started seeing spots in the field that didn’t look right. At first I thought it was a nematode problem, but soil samples came back clean. Once we identified the problem, it was too late to do anything about it.”

Literally, no one knew the source of his problems. “I had my insecticide dealer come look at my beans, and Clemson Extension personnel, and finally Jess Easterling, a Monsanto sales representative from South Carolina, brought Mike Baker, a Monsanto Agronomist from North Carolina out to my farm, and they identified the stem borers,” Carter says.

Read the rest of the story at Southeast Farm Press

Total losses of managed honey bee colonies nationwide were 31.1 percent from all causes for the 2012/2013 winter, according to the annual survey conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership and the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

• Bee losses for the 2011/2012 winter were 22 percent. This past winter’s losses are slightly higher than the previous 6-year average loss of 30.5 percent.

• The survey, which covered from October 2012 through April 2013, was conducted by University of Maryland research scientist Dennis vanEngelsdorp, who is also director of the Bee Informed Partnership, in collaboration with Jeff Pettis, research leader of the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., and others. More information about the Bee Informed Partnership is available online at http://beeinformed.org.

• One difference noted this winter was that there were more colonies that dwindled away, rather than suffering from the onset of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), where colony populations are lost suddenly.

• One major difference in this survey is that beekeepers who later took honey bees to California to pollinate almonds reported higher losses than beekeepers who did not take their bees to pollinate almonds. Nearly 20 percent of the beekeepers who pollinated almonds lost 50 percent or more of their colonies, according to vanEngelsdorp.

• More than two-thirds of responding beekeepers (70 percent) reported losses greater than 14 percent, the level of loss that beekeepers stated as allowing them to remain economically viable as a business.

• Beekeepers did not report CCD as a major cause of colony loss this past winter, which follows the previous year’s trend.

• More than 6,000 U.S. beekeepers responded to the survey. Those beekeepers manage about 600,000 colonies, which represent nearly 22 percent of the country’s estimated 2.62 million colonies.

• The abstract for the survey can be found at http://beeinformed.org/2013/05/winter-loss-survey-2012-2013. A complete analysis of the survey data will be published later this year.

• Funding for the survey came from the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

• More information about honey bee health and CCD can be found at www.ars.usda.gov/ccd.

Read the story at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/beelosses/index.htm.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is planning to release two new predatory beetles to stop the spread of the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive insect that has devastated hemlock forests throughout the eastern United States.

The park began releasing predatory beetles, which feed exclusively on adelgids, in 2002. Park managers are hopeful that the addition of these two new beetle species will help even further.

Both beetle species are small black lady beetles and will be released at sites throughout the park. One of the beetles comes from Osaka, Japan, where the Smokies strain of invasive adelgid originated. The other comes from Washington, where a similar adelgid species occurs and has been kept in check by the predatory beetle.

Park managers currently utilize two other beetle species for controlling the adelgid, they also originate from Washington and northern Japan. In the long-term, park officials expect beetles to control the invasive beetle.

The park also employs injecting leaves with horticultural oil and stem and soil injections of systemic insecticides. About 600 acres are being sprayed annually. More than 250,000 hemlock trees across 11,000 acres have been hand-treated with systemic pesticides and more than 545,000 predatory beetles have been released. Each beetle species is first quarantined and researched in depth before given approval for release.

In 2012, Cotton Belt entomologists reported the lowest percent loss to insects since annual surveys of Cotton Belt entomologists began 33 years ago, according to entomologist Mike Williams, who compiles the annual survey, Cotton Insect Losses.

Across the Cotton Belt, insects caused an average 2.06 percent loss per acre. Williams said entomologists estimated management costs of insects at around $51.39 per acre. Cost plus loss was $71.18.

Louisiana reported the highest loss to insect pests in 2012,  at 8.95 percent, while New Mexico reported the lowest, at 0.001 percent.

The lowest average cost of insect management occurred in 2009, when growers spent an average of $43.79 per acre, while 2000 was the highest cost ever reported, at $117.32.

The highest loss to insects ever came in 1995, when Heliothines (primarily tobacco budworms) caused 11.08 percent damage to the crop. The following year, Bt cotton was introduced, and a few years later, boll weevil eradication.

The year 2001 was somewhat momentous, noted Williams. “It marked the time when we began the trend to low, loss percentages. Bt cotton and eradication really dropped those percentages down to where they are reflected today.”

The survey for insect losses began in 1979. Cost of management was first reported in 1986.

Lygus, or plant bug, was the No. 1 pest of cotton in 2012, according to the survey, with losses of 0.695 percent. The pest infested about 45.5 percent of U.S. acres in 2012.

 The Mid-South growing region has historically been a hot spot for plant bug. Louisiana reported a 3 percent loss to the pest in 2012, Mississippi, 4.7 percent, Arkansas, 4 percent, Missouri, 4 percent and Tennessee, 3.3 percent. Lygus lineolaris is the primary pest of the Mid-South and lygus hesperus is a formidable pest in Arizona and California.

The No. 2 insect, stink bug, caused a 0.375 percent loss and infested about 39.1 percent of U.S. acres. The Southeast was a hot spot for stink bug infestations, along with Arizona, which reported a 3 percent loss to the pest.

Thrips were the third most damaging pest, with a loss of 0.374 percent. About 70 percent of U.S. acreage was reported infested. “Most years we see this pest on nearly 100 percent of the acreage,” Williams said. “Usually there’s not very much loss. No state really had a tremendous amount of loss in 2012.”

Heliothines were the fourth most damaging pest, with 0.188 percent loss, according to the survey. About 88 percent of that population was the cotton bollworm. Almost 52 percent of U.S. acres were infested. “We had fairly low numbers in each of the states. Five states reported no infestations of Heliothines,” Williams said.

Williams noted that 11.2 million of the 12 million acres of cotton planted in 2012 contained the Bt trait. The average cost of Bt cotton was about $15.74 an acre.

Cotton fleahoppers were the next most damaging pest, with 0.152 percent losses, according to the survey. “This is a pest that we see primarily in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma,” Williams said. “For the last few years, Kansas has reported a little over 1 percent damage from cotton fleahopper.”

The cotton fleahopper was found on about 39.4 percent of U.S. cotton acres. About 4.976 million acres of cotton was infested in 2012, with about 3.6 million of those acres in Texas.

The sixth most damaging pest, spider mite, is mostly a Mid-South pest and caused a 0.147 percent loss in 2012. About 29 percent of U.S. cotton acres were infested, “and we only lost about 63,000 bales.” Four states reported no losses to spider mites this year.

Silverleaf whitefly is mostly seen in the West, but did cause damage in Georgia in 2012. Only about 20,000 bales were lost to this pest, which infested 596,499 acres. Losses were 0.058 percent.

Aphids were the next most important pest, damaging 0.0383 percent of the crop. “Typically aphids appear most years in most states. In 2012, two states did not report infestations. On average, it was a light aphid year,” said Williams.

Pests in the “other” category caused losses of 0.01 percent. About 1.04 million acres were infested by pests in this category.

The clouded plant bug was the next most damaging pest, at 0.0319 percent losses. The survey reported that 761,000 acres were infested by clouded plant bug, mostly in the Mid-South. A little over 3,000 bales were lost.

The United States is still reporting losses to boll weevil, primarily along the Rio Grande River. “We were about to declare the United States boll weevil free this year, but there are still some acres infested, around 20,000 acres to 25,000 acres. No bales were lost to the pest.”

The average U.S. cost of boll weevil eradication is $3.60 an acre, according to the survey. “One area in Texas is paying about $19 an acre, and Arkansas is paying between $12 and $13 an acre. The low is about 50 cents an acre in Virginia.” Growers paid an average of 33 cents an acre for pink bollworm eradication.

Williams said the low damage levels are an indicator that pest management is working well in the United States. “I think it’s important that we continue to be aware of the new and potentially dangerous pests that are coming, but we are doing a good job on pest management.”

A total of 33 arthropods were listed in the 2012 survey.

They have been disappointed.

White-nose syndrome has claimed more than 90 percent of bats in three sites around the region, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission announced this week, and has now been found in seven Western North Carolina counties.

“We started seeing some (bat population) declines last year and this year sort of confirmed it,” said Susan Cameron, an Asheville-based biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The declines could eventually lead to the extinction of some bat species, at least in this area, and could present a nuisance for people because bats eat large numbers of insects like mosquitoes.

Before checks of WNC mines and caves in recent weeks, scientists had hoped differences in climate might blunt the fungus’ effect, Cameron said.

They found a devastating decline instead.

The number of bats hibernating in a former mine in Avery County, for example, has fallen from more to 1,000 to about 65 in two years, the Wildlife Resources Commission said.

At a mine in Haywood County, the population dropped from almost 4,000 to about 250 bats in one year and at a cave in McDowell County, hibernating bats went from 300 to only a few.

“Before white-nose syndrome, it was fascinating to see large clusters of bats” in hibernating sites, Cameron said. This year, there were typically just a few bats scattered here or there in the same places, she said.

The fungus entered the United States in the Northeast and has spread south. It saps bats’ energy during hibernation, sometimes causing them to fly outside during the winter and then, typically, dying because the insects they eat are not out yet.

So-called tree-roosting bats, which either fly south for the winter or hibernate individually here in locations other than caves, do not appear to be susceptible to the fungus.

Cameron said it is possible, but hardly certain, that the populations of those types of bats could fill some of the gap in the ecosystem being left by cave-hibernating bats.

In addition to mosquitoes, bats eat moths and beetles, Cameron said, including beetles that harm crops and the gypsy moth, an exotic species that harms hardwood trees.

Caves and abandoned mines in Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Nantahala and Pisgah national forests are off-limits because of white-nose syndrome. People cannot contract the disease but can spread it from one cave to another.

From the Asheville Citizen-Times

There are many management efforts you can take before your soybean seed goes into the ground.

Some of these actions are simply insurance and some of them, like your choice of row-spacing and planting date, are the best insect management decision choice you’ll make all year.

Unlike corn, which has many yield-robbing seedling pests (i.e., sugarcane beetle, billbugs, grubs, etc.) and the ever-present threat of thrips in cotton, we have very few seedling pests to contend with in soybeans.

Also unlike corn and cotton, seed treatments are not economical in North Carolina soybeans. In fact, seed treatments and foliar over-sprays have been tested in both Virginia and North Carolina for over 10 years.

Across nearly 20 trial/locations, there was not a single yield loss recorded due to seedling pests. These trials were designed with the intent of creating a problem with insects.

In one case, thrips numbers were as high as 91 per seedling, a situation that would have killed a cotton plant.  There were no yield differences in this trial.

The odds are that very very few fields, in our state will benefit by increasing yield from an insecticidal soybean seed treatment. And just as an aside, neonicotinoid seed treatments will not kill kudzu bugs. Read on to learn more about the soybean seedling pest complex.

In Virginia and North Carolina, both thrips and bean leaf beetle are a non-issue in terms of soybean yield when they infest seedlings. Do not scout or treat (or use seed treatments) for either of these pests.

Grasshoppers, katydids, and cutworms tend to be a problem in fields with lots of residue (think no-till) and fields that have not been properly rotated. They are also more of a problem on field edges.

These should be controlled with a pyrethroid if they begin to reduce stand levels to densities below those recommended by North Carolina Cooperative Extension.

Slugs, which are also more of a problem in no-till fields, are more difficult to control, as insecticides are ineffective. They are more of a problem when conditions are cool and wet which tend to be early on in the season.

Read the rest in Southeast Farm Press