Drill Strip Variety Trial Results

I will be posting the Umatilla County Drill Strip Variety Trial results as I harvest them on this blog. A full summary will go out in my Cereal Newsletter in late August but these numbers will give you a snapshot of what we are seeing in the local harvest so far.

Woodward Farms, near Myrick Elevator, harvested July 17.

Variety Bushel/Ac

1. Skiles 63.1
2. Goetze 68.4
3. ORCF102 63.3
4. Stephens 63.8

Confederated Tribes of Umatilla, south reservation area, harvested July 23.

Variety Bushels/Ac

1. Skiles 57.8
2. Goetze 63.7
3. ORCF 101 63.3
4. ORCF 102 59.1
5. Tubbs 06 60.7
6. Stephens 58.2

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Wheathead armyworm - True or False

As wheat harvest roars into full gear, I continue to moniter the wheathead armyworm traps - not for lack of anything to do, but we are curious if or when we may get a second flight of adult moths. Our plan is to continue to collect weekly through mid September.

Peter Landolt, USDA ARS entomologist, has raised an interesting question about the identification of the armyworm that we have been seeing in our local fields. Silvia Rondon and I will be working closely with Peter to confirm that we have been collecting moths that are not the true wheat head armyworm but a "false" wheathead armyworm.

The two are closely related, but the one that we collected this year Peter has identified as Faraonta terrapicathlis not Faronta diffusa as we previously reported. This photo shows a picture of the moths we have collected earlier this summer. Several other moth species have been collected, and we are making a collection of the moths, and other insects attracted to our traps.

Wheathead armyworm counts virtually nonexistent

Wheathead armyworm counts have been virtually nonexistent for the past two weeks, both as adult moths and larvae. Reports from Washington State are similar. There is no concrete answer to why populations of this insect pest have nose-dived this year compared to 2008 and 2007.

The only insects that I found today were some ladybugs in a nearby spring wheat field.

Harvest is expected to get underway in the next 7-10 days in the area as the winter wheat fields are turning golden, and wheat kernels are past the dough stage in development.

If anyone finds wheathead armyworms on their wheat, please contact me as we are still trying to collect larvae for identification and research purposes!