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Flag Leaf Injury by Billbugs
Often as flag leaves emerge a strange injury is observed. The injury consists of rows of holes in the leaf as it unrolls. Often, leaves injured in such a fashion end up breaking in the wind. The best explanation for this type of injury is feeding by BILLBUGS, a small (1/8 in.), black or brown snout weevil which feeds on foliage as an adult and on grass roots as a grub. The injury is usually minor, and tends to be concentrated on field margins near grassy ditches. There have been inquiries about this type of injury from across the state. Sites where the feeding was noticeable were in fields following summer fallow. In these cases, billbug adults had emerged earlier from larval feeding sites, fed, and have not dispersed. By the time injury is observed, the billbugs themselves are rarely found, only the signs of their feeding.
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