Flour Mill field trip and Stored Product Pests

On November 18th we were able to go on a field trip to one of two flour mills located on the Kansas State University Campus where we able to get a better understanding of the efforts they must take to keep pests at a minimum within a mill. When managing pests in the field prior to harvest there are many different aspects to consider. For instance how can we control a problem pest without having a secondary pest outbreak? In the field we have natural enemies and cultural control methods that help to keep some pests in check. Also we can use some fairly harsh chemicals early in the year that will not be persistent in the grain, whereas we need to be very cautious about what chemicals are applied to stored grains especially if they are going to end up in a food supply.





Some major challenges that these mills present are the amount of small unreachable areas that pests are able to hide and build populations within these buildings. The picture above shows just a small area of the mill we were in, but even in the photo you can see the amount of machinery and equipment that is present within. Inside these machines are cracks and crevices that insects can crawl into and around, while feeding on the fine dust that is deposited from the milling process. Older mills, some with wooden floors even, have a greater deal of these small hiding places that are ideal for pests to live within. So it can be somewhat more challenging to keep them free of pests.






If i was to design my own mill, i think it would be full of bugs! The KSU mill is designed to be easy to clean and try to minimize the areas that allow pest populations to develop. First off i really liked some of their ideas, like to keep objects off the floor that would require sweeping around and provide areas for milling dust to gather. The floors were sloped up to machines to help prevent dirt from gathering at the bases. Trash cans were held off the floor. All of these are ideas that i never would have come up with, but yet they really help to keep the mill clean.


Yes, phosphine can be used within a flour mill as it leaves no harmful residue on the product. But it does promote the rusting of metals within the mill. Also pests can build up resistance to it so if it is the only method used it may loose effectiveness.


When unloading my first load of corn, I would make sure to seal up all the openings in the bin to make it difficult for pests to enter. Also i would have applied a pesticide barrier prior to filling any bin with grain to kill insects that are present and to deter others from entering. Once the bin has been filled with grain, using a bin fan to move air within the bin to control temperature would be another approach. If the temperature inside the bin is less than favorable for insects thay are less likely to be entering.

Crop Videos over Alfalfa management

For my crop videos, i chose to do Alfalfa as it can require a fair amount of management. So i was hoping there would be a nice variety of videos on pest management. Here are two that i found, the top one i liked and found very informative. It is about potato leaf hopper management and basically shows how to do sweep netting and identify the pest. Plus gives the recommended thresholds for that area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oQWwZVW2OI

The second video does not provide as much information. But for the setting it is filmed in does OK. If they included more about management and identification of pests this would be a very quality video that producers could use as well. The individuals in the video appear to have the resources available because they pass out several handouts. If they made slides of the handouts then all the viewers could relate to what was being said. Here is the second video-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTzLVqPNzls

Hope you enjoyed those and learned a little as well.

Fieldtrip to the ZOO!!!

For lab last week we had the opportunity to visit the KSU insect zoo. Which, I had never been to but had heard about, so i was somewhat excited to see what they all had. We were able to take a guided tour of the zoo by the Zoo's manager Kiffnie Holt. I have some pictures that i took on the tour below. They have some neat exhibits and it gave me some ideas of what to incorporate into my poster project that we have coming up.

1.) After visiting the insect zoo i could tell that the Wheat Stem Maggot bug byte that i had done earlier was not going to be of much interest in the Zoo. So i decided to do my poster on a different insect. After visiting the zoo i considered both the cricket and grasshopper as possible choices. I chose to do the grasshopper because everyone knows what they are and hopefully i can provide a little more info that they may have not known.

2.) Probably the hardest part about the grasshopper, is that everyone does know it, so they may just look at the pictures and walk by without actually reading the poster. But I'm hoping that younger kids can recognize the pictures and then stop to read. I don't know if it will get their attention right off, but i was surprised to find out that grasshoppers can jump 20 times their body length. So I'm about 5'10" and that would mean for me to do that i would need to jump 39 yards.

3.)

5.) Kiffnie stated that there really shouldn't be a whole lot of text on the posters for the younger kids. And that they are more interested in pictures and funny words. But they also get some groups who are slightly older like around 4Th grade, so it is kind of a balancing act. Basically i just wanted to provide a quick and informative overview to whoever stopped to look, no matter what their age.

Since i have already completed my rough draft, i think i did alright but may have a few to many words for the really young kids. I'm excited to see what everyone else has done and how my ideas compared to there's.

Dectes Stem Borer vs. The Cold

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4xPSAUOEA7JwLaLM6_Rm0JN-eVK-sqD1NvBb4GSVRI0hGw0oboSSfp7j_G2HM46_-SFSJW8e1pChJ4TC2jjHFhyphenhyphenxLayJE6C1y8-jxJjCN2zoM3JAdNA_I-rSby5VYBtBKGXBzxJ1uZIU/s400/Dectes2.jpg

Introduction

In last weeks lab we discussed the Dectes Stem borer and its impact on both sunflowers and soybeans. We learned that the Dectes stem borers overwinter inside the base of host plant stems. And that the distribution of the borer throughout the Unites States can be linked to how cold the winter temperatures can be and if the Dectes can survive the winter in certain areas. We know that the super cooling temperature for Dectes is around -15 to -20 degrees C. So in lab we worked to develop an experiment that would test some of the factors that we thought would affect the overwintering success of the Dectes stem borer. As a class we came up with Tunnel Humidity, Stem Size, Chamber size, Snow insulation, Soil presence and Dectes Size as possible field factors that could affect the success of Dectes overwintering.

Discussion
As a class we decided to test the rate of Dectes survival using stem size as our variable. The hypothesis formed was that a larger stem would create greater insulation and thus the survival rate would be higher for larger stems. We decided to use both sunflower and soybean stems to compare the rate at which they cooled and if their size could contribute to Dectes survival, also included was a control temp taken from outside a plant stem but exposed to the same conditions. From the experiment data which I have given below, you can tell that the control data set was the first to decline in temperature. While the soybean was second and it took slightly longer for the sunflower to cool. From the graph below we can say that our hypothesis was correct, and that the larger stems did take longer to cool. Also, given the control points we can tell that being inside a stem at all helps to reduce how dramatic the temperature drop is. Personally i had anticipated the difference is cooling to be more pronounced.

Cool temperature below 0 degrees C would have little effect on the stem borer, their supercooling point as i stated above is quite colder than 0 degrees C. Unless exposed to 0 degrees C for a very extended period of time, at which point i assume some death would occur. I'm unsure if the stalks being wet would dampen the effect of the cold, but if the experiment were to be repeated with dry stalks we could definitely compare and then we would know! Other sources of error could be thermocouple placement in the stalk, it would be hard to get them all in the center etc.

The Great Debate

Two weeks ago we were asked to read a pair of articles prior to class that we would be discussing during our class period the following Wednesday. In short the two articles were about the "Big Seed" companies and how they are strictly limiting the ability for private research to be conducted on their new seed varieties. After reading the articles and witnessing the rather heated debate that occurred in class, i have no posted my thoughts on the matter below.

http://greenacresblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/g-tall-corn-close-up.jpg

"Big Seed" companies have spent tremendous amounts of money to develop the current hybrids or varieties that we have today, and for that i am very thankful. However, i feel that by not letting private individuals and researchers conduct experiments, they are hiding something from the general public. Possibly long term soil affects? Long term personal health concerns? I really don't know, but without adequate testing of recent plant technologies the only real way to know is to continue on this path until something very negative happens many years down the road and think- now why didn't we force them to test their products? We will all be disgusted and criticize "those people" who absolutely forced new plant genetics upon us. How dare they! Or possibly they are completely harmless and we should do more to boost yields and continue to feed to world. But with such a large investment the companies should have some right to protect their products. A tiny bit of faulty information or a flawed experiment could cost a company untold amounts of income if it reflected badly on their products. Would the government bail them out if that information lead to their bankruptcy?

On the other hand, as an American consumer i cant see how they can be allowed to control all of the data about their products. For me it is funny that most times the company who owns the test plot, has the highest yields in that particular plot. So test plots and trials run by universities or private parties show unbiased comparisons that the average consumer (or producer in this case) can use to make decisions about what to plant. Another down side to producers is that seed costs seemingly have no ceiling. I understand that for new technologies there will be additional costs but where is the end. And with the proposed reduction in refuge acres, if resistant populations appear, "Big Seed" will again profit when they are able to release their "new resistance".

Honestly this makes for a good debate question, and their are logical points made on both sides. But for me the biggest question is where does it end? Do farmers quit buying seed that is loaded with traits? Or do producers and the public get answers from "Big Seed" firms? For now i cant see either side making a move, so time will tell.

Percent defoliation results

As i said in last weeks blog, this week i would be reviewing the results from a percent defoliation exercise we did two weeks ago. We were asked to look at 60 leaves and estimate the percent defoliation of each leaf. Afterward the actual percent defoliation for each was calculated and then our "guesses" were compared to that. So how did i/we do? Well i have posted the results from lab below-








Denton won the prize for being closest to the actual amount of defoliation that had occurred. This can be determined by looking at the Regression equation. If someone was to guess all the percent defoliation correct there equation would be equal to 1, or there would be no deviation away from the one to one line (what was actual vs. what was guessed). For all samplers involved it appears we fell into the range of R squared values from .67 to .84(Denton) which sounds fairly good to me. Overall if i read into the statistics well enough the class tended to overestimate the amount of defoliation present on the leaves, which is what i did (y=1.5264x). And overestimating seems to be the trend of the class but we did have a few participants that underestimated the percent defoliation.

Soybean Insects and Percent Defoliation

For lab this week we were asked to examine individual soybean plants and look for insects present as well as insect damage that had occurred during the growing season. I had two soybean plants, one that was physiologically mature and ready to harvest and another that was at R6 with full seed pod (shown above). With the beans being at different growth stages, i was able to look at damaged plants on both green plant tissue and dead tissue. A couple pictures of what i found are posted below.

Stink Bug damage where feeding had occurred in the uppermost bean in this pod.

Although this picture doesn't show it to well, there is a stink bug nymph just in front of my index finger.

From what i saw in lab, if i had two fields with these two different maturities i would be sampling the R6 field. From the picture i posted above you can see the damage that the stink bug had done to the bean in the pod, but it is to late to solve that problem in a mature bean plant. If you are sampling in the younger of the two beans you may be able to save some yield at that point. To go along with that i found a nymph on my younger plant so there must have been adults present in the field. Both my old and young soybeans plants showed some damage from Bean Leaf Beetle, possible grasshopper and Stink bugs. If i had 30 plant samples that showed all the same type of damage from the 3 insects listed above, i believe there would be enough pressure to treat the R6 field with an insecticide. My concern with that statement is the maturity of the field, if my plant was slightly behind on a field basis then it may be to late to see any benefit from treating, so it is somewhat hard to call with just two plants.

http://ipm.illinois.edu/hyg/insects/japanese_beetles/images/2_03.jpg

Once we had completed our evaluation of the bean plants we were asked to do some quick estimates of percent defoliation on 60 soybean leaves that were spread across the lab tables. I will comment more on this next week as we have not received any results yet, just did the guessing part.