Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 12, March 22, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and FiresideVarious
Science
Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 12, March 22, 1884: A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
Various
Agriculture -- United States -- Periodicals; Farm life -- Periodicals; United States -- Rural conditions -- Periodicals
"The wheat straw-worm (Isosoma tritici), a minute, slender, yellow grub,
which burrows inside the growing stem, dwarfing or blighting the forming
head, was abundant throughout the winter wheat region of Southern
Illinois, causing, in some places, a loss scarcely exceeded by that due to
the Hessian Fly. Our breeding experiments demonstrate that this insect
winters in the straw as larvæ or pupa, emerging as an adult fly early in
spring, these flies laying their eggs upon the stems after they commence
to joint. As the flies are very minute, and nearly all are wingless, their
spread from field to field is slow, and it seems entirely within the power
of the individual farmer to control this insect by burning or otherwise
destroying the stubble in summer or autumn, and burning the surplus of the
straw not fed to stock early in spring. A simple rotation of crops,
devoting land previously in wheat to some other grain or to grass, will
answer instead of burning the stubble.
"The life history of the wheat bulb-worm (Meromyza Americana) was
completed this year. The second or summer brood did decided injury to
wheat in Fulton county, so many of the heads being killed that some of the
fields looked gray at a little distance. This species was also injurious
to rye, but much less so than to wheat. It certainly does not attack oats
at all; fields of that grain raised where winter wheat had been destroyed
by it, and plowed up, being entirely free from it, while wheat fields
adjacent were badly damaged. We have good evidence that postponement of
sowing to as late a date as possible prevents the ravages of this insect,
in the same way as it does those of the Hessian Fly.
"The common rose chafer (Macrodactylus subspinosus) greatly injured some
fields of corn in Will county, the adult beetle devouring the leaves.
"The 'flea negro-bug' (Thyreocoris pulicarius) was found injurious to
wheat in Montgomery county, draining the sap from the heads before
maturity, so that the kernel shriveled and ripened prematurely. In parts
of some fields the crop was thus almost wholly destroyed.
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