Ag News for America
A new online program helps farmers track and manage insect data from their fields. MyTraps.com helps producers mitigate risk by electronically tracking the number of insects in fields to better control crop damage and improve the efficiency of insecticide applications.
Johnny Park, president and CEO of Spensa Technologies recently launched MyTraps.com to give farmers another tool to utilize when making pest management decisions.
At a recent Pioneer media event at the company’s headquarters in Johnston, Iowa, we visited with Pioneer’s marketing manager for corn, Josh St. Peters, about the addition of Optimum AcreMax and Optimum AcreMax Xtra to the Pioneer lineup for 2012.
St. Peters explains how these new single-bag integrated refuge products offer insect control choices and provide simplified refuge compliance for corn growers. He also talks about what’s ahead for AcreMax and shares his thoughts on rootworm resistance concerns.
AUDIO: Josh St. Peters (5:09 MP3)
Thus far, the winter months have been rather mild. Because of that, crop pest may be more abundant in farm fields this spring. Christian Krupke, Purdue Extension entomologist says increased pressure is likely to come from insects that overwinter close to production fields and near the soil surface. “The main ones we think about is bean leaf beetle in soybeans; corn flea beetle is sometimes an issue in corn; and alfalfa weevil in alfalfa,” he says. “Those are the three that come to mind right away.”
Krupke says because most soybean and corn seed is treated with insecticide, most farmers are protected. “But, sometimes those pesticides that are on the seeds are not enough and in some cases growers will sometimes want to look through their fields and look for feeding,” he says. “For example,” he says, “if soybeans are just emerging and the cotyledons are there, bean leaf beetle feeding could be heavy enough to merit an insecticide treatment with a foliar spray.”
Krupke says Purdue monitors that situation and provides updates through their website and the Pest and Management newsletter to advise farmers when numbers for pests such as the bean leaf beetle are high.
Depending on where you farm, the insect outlook for 2012may be different, but here in Ohio, Andy Michel, Assistant Professor in the Department of Entomology at the Ohio State University says there are a couple of insects worth mentioning, the soybean aphid and a new one in Ohio that Michel and others will be monitoring, the brown marmorated stink bug.
Audio: Andy Michel, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Entomology, OSU (3:00 MP3)
Andy Michel, Assistant Professor in the Entomology Department at the Ohio State University says the relatively mild winter, so far, doesn’t necessarily mean we should expect increased insect numbers come spring and summer.
“We have less snowpack on the ground and sometimes the insects that really like to burrow underground really need that snowpack for insulation,” said Michel. “But we have a long way to go as we found out last year when we had a good planting window and then we were shut down for a long time and that affects the insect population as well, so the weather outlook, the precipitation, it will all depend, with a long way to go.”
Michel was on the program at the West Ohio Agronomy Day held Monday, January 9, in Ft. Loramie, Ohio.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says Monsanto isn’t doing enough to monitor for “suspected” rootworm resistance to its genetically engineered “Bt” corn.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the EPA has informed Monsanto that it needs to expand its monitoring program now that rootworms in portions of four Midwest states are “suspected” of having developed resistance to the plants.
The agency stopped short of declaring that the ability of the rootworm to overcome the genetically-modified plants is “confirmed.”
Nonetheless, the “suspected resistance” prompted EPA scientists to take a harder look at Monsanto’s current monitoring program, which they conclude “is ineffective and likely to miss early resistance events.”
Monsanto, which has said that the problem involves only a tiny fraction of the fields that grew its genetically-modified corn this year, says that it takes the EPA’s review “seriously”, but that its existing monitoring procedures are thorough.
Farmers in the Corn Belt now have a new single-bag option for managing above-ground pests.
Monsanto’s Genuity® VT Double PRO® RIB Complete™ recently received registration from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), completing federal regulatory authorization in the United States.
Genuity VT Double PRO RIB Complete is a blend of 95 percent Genuity VT Double PRO and 5 percent refuge (non-Bt) seed.
According to Monsanto corn traits marketing manager Matt Kirkpatrick, the single-bag solution of Genuity VT Double PRO RIB Complete will help simplify the planting process while delivering peace of mind for refuge compliance.
At the Syngenta booth at NAFB Trade Talk in Kansas City, Carroll Moseley, a brand manager with Syngenta Crop Protection, discussed the importance of managing against the potential for insect and weed resistance. He also gave us an update on Agrisure Viptera.
Pioneer is launching Optimum Acre Max Xtra for 2012 for above and below ground protection of corn after a successful season with Optimum Acre Max One. More than 4-Million corn acres of that initial product was planted in the United States, producing outstanding yields, according to Pioneer Corn Marketing Manager Josh St. Peters.
St. Peters also told Brownfield at the 2011 NAFB Trade Talk event that in this year’s widespread drought, Optimum AquaMax corn was tested and has had an overwhelming response from growers.
Getting the next generation excited about what’s happening out in the fields is part of what agronomists do. How they do it can take many forms. Take Missouri agronomist Sue Brakehane who spent an afternoon with FFA students in a Mexico, Missouri soybean field during the Asgrow Pod Patrol last week.
“I think the best way to get anybody involved and excited is to show them what they’re seeing. So, we decided to turn them loose and give them a trivia event and put together a kind of a question list of what can you look for in the field. So when they’re doing that we’re taking a look at, ‘what do you see on the beans, do you see more four bean pods and how many can they could find?’ That’s one part of the competition. We wanted to see ‘what else do you see on those beans as they are starting to change and mature?’ We had them collect insects. That was kind of entertaining because some aren’t real fond of bugs. But, we had a good time collecting those and then having them identify them with a book, too.”
Brakehane tells Brownfield a lot of it has to do with having fun.
“One of the questions the farmer here had for me was ‘how did you get involved? – ‘you look like you’re excited and have fun.’ And, I think the biggest thing is if you get the kid excited at a younger age it’s one of the career development paths and just showing that we’re excited in what we do for a living – and we live and breathe a lot of hours in the fields,” says Brakehane, “It’s always good to pass that on to another generation and say, ‘hey, if you enjoy this at all, this might be something to look into as you learn more and understand what’s going on in the field.’”
Mexico FFA officer, Sarah Smith, tells Brownfield she had “tons of fun.” She says the day fit in perfectly with her future plans to become an agronomist. “Yes, it does, because it’s a chance to go out there and research things because I want to be in agronomy, so, of course I want to learn more about plants,” says Smith.
When the time comes, Smith says she plans to major in agronomy at Northwest Missouri State. As for finding four-bean pods – the FFA students found several hundred in their short time out in the field.
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