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Data Shows Limited Economic Impact from Western Bean Cutworm Control in 2024 Sprinkler Corn Competition

By Krystle Rhoades

During the 2024 growing season, competitors in the sprinkler corn competition were given the opportunity to choose insecticide treatments targeting the western bean cutworm, a moth/caterpillar pest. This decision was based on scouting data gathered by Julie Peterson and her team on July 12, 15 and 19. The scouting report showed that a cumulative 4% of corn plants were infested with either eggs or newly hatched larvae.

Resources were also provided to competitors to help them decide if and when treatment for western bean cutworm is necessary. A quick decision was made by each farm to select whether an insecticide treatment should be made, and their choice of one of three insecticides.

Insecticides were applied at 15 gpa on Thursday, July 25 by Dr. Milos Zaric (assistant professor, Pesticide Application Technology Lab) with a high clearance sprayer with 10-foot wide boom (Figure 2). For each treated plot, the final 28 feet were left unsprayed as a control. Most competitors (71.1%) chose not to treat with an insecticide, whereas nine farms (23.7%) chose Brigade, one (2.6%) chose Vantacor, and one (2.6%) chose Elevest.

On Aug. 22, 2024, the entomology research team collected and examined 10 corn ears each from the sprayed and unsprayed portions of representative plots to determine ear feeding injury to the crop (measured in square inches of feeding damage). Within each plot, the amount of damage to the sprayed ears was subtracted from the amount of damage to the unsprayed ears to calculate the average square inches of damage prevented by the insecticide application. Overall, feeding injury due to western bean cutworm was very low, as would be expected due to the scouting showing 4% infestation rate, which is… (continue reading)

Source : unl.edu

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Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.