The 2017 integrated pest management (IPM) small grain, soybean and sunflower field survey officially began on Wednesday, May 24 with scout training conducted at the Carrington Research Extension Center. The program is managed by the NDSU Extension Service, in cooperation with the ND Dept. of Ag., to identify North Dakota crop pest presence in random commercial fields. Use of the survey data includes farmer, crop adviser and ag industry education; support for exporting ND crops; and reference for educational and research projects.

2017 IPM scout training.

State IPM survey coordinators are Jan Knodel, extension entomologist; Patrick Beauzay, State IPM coordinator and entomology research specialist; and Sam Markell and Andrew Friskop, extension plant pathologists. Brittney Aasand, crop scout based at the Carrington REC and supervised by Greg Endres, will survey fields in 11 south-central counties: Burleigh, Dickey, Eddy, Emmons, Foster, Kidder, LaMoure, Logan, McIntosh, Stutsman, and Wells.

Brittney Aasand, 2017 south-central IPM scout.

The small grain (primarily spring wheat but also barley and winter wheat) survey will be conducted during late May to early August, primarily for leaf and head diseases, and insects. Primary diseases to be monitored in the survey are bacterial leaf blight, barley yellow dwarf virus, rust (leaf, stem and stripe), Fusarium head blight (scab), Septoria, loose smut, net and spot blotch (barley), tan spot (wheat), and wheat streak mosaic virus (wheat). Insects to be surveyed are grasshoppers, aphids, barley thrips, wheat stem maggot and sawfly.

Sunflower fields will be inspected during mid June through mid August for grasshoppers, downy mildew, rust and verticillium wilt. Soybean fields will be surveyed to monitor grasshoppers, soybean aphid, bean leaf beetle and spider mites.

Greg Endres
gregory.endres@ndsu.edu
Agronomy Extension Specialist