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.