National Co-op week!

October is national co-op month, and the week of the 17th through the 23rd is national co-op week.  I have a long history with co-ops and am passionate about their mission.  I am an avid member and patron of food co-ops (two of my favorite are the Davis Food Co-op and Willy Street Co-op).  One of my regrets is that Raleigh lacks a good food co-op.  I lived for year in Summit Avenue Housing Co-op, and I spent one of the best summers in my life educating elementary through high school students about co-ops at Wisconsin Farmer's Union Kamp Kenwood.  Recently, I learned about a hops producing and marketing co-op in Wisconsin.

Co-ops are responsible for some the most well known brands, including REI, Ocean Spray, Blue Diamond, Organic Valley, and down in North Carolina, Southern States.  The center of density for co-ops has long been the upper midwest.  Moving to the south, this difference has become more aparent.  Hopefully, this good idea will continue to spread.

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National Co-op Month

Randolph County Newsletter

Mary Helen Ferguson, Randolph County horticulture agent and one of the volunteer SWD trappers, has posted a new newsletter.  It includes a SWD for growers and can be found here.

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Randolph County Horticulture News

Repost from Myrmecos: Honey bees as pawns

Alex Wild over at Mymercos has posted a thoughtful article in response to the media frenzy surrounding the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) findings published in PLoS One. This study linked CCD to two bee pathogens. The study itself was fairly small scale, and larger studies that will soon be published have been conducted (some at NCSU). What Alex was responding to, however, was not the validity of the work, but rather the media's interpretation, specifically those trying to link pesticides to CCD and who found fault with one of the study author's associations with Bayer Crop Sciences.

The fact is, all applied entomologists have at least some association with pesticide companies. They often provide research funding and materials, and much of the applied work that is conducted at universities would simply not be done without their support. However, no program I have observed, both mine and others, lets this relationship color their research results and interpretation. The reason pesticide companies fund university research is because we are objective. If we lose that objectivity, we would also lose industry funding (and our moral center). Further, at public universities, funding relationships are public as are all the results generated by funded research. I encourage growers, companies, and other researchers to request, view, and use results from my pesticide based trials. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

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Honey bees as pawns

NC State Fair Wine Competition

The NC State Fair has named its 2010 award winners. The top wines as well as a link to the complete results can be found here.

NCES Photo Contest - Deadline October 22

"Texas skies" by Steve Frank. Winner of Best Adult Arthropod photograph, 2009 NCES Photo Contest.

The deadline for the NC Entomological Society Photo Contest is October 22. Members and non members are encouraged to enter, and the contest announcement along with all the submission details can be found here. Last year's award winners can be viewed here.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug - Guest post from Anne Nielsen

Anne Nielsen presents on BMSB as part of the Entomology Department seminar series at University of California, Davis. Photo: UCD

Anne Nielsen was among the first entomologists to study the brown marmorated stink bug after its introduction to North America.  I contacted her last week to get her insights on the pest potential of BMSB in North Carolina.  Dr. Nielsen is currently a post doctoral researcher at Michigan State University.  Below are her comments.

BMSB is predicted to have at least 2 generations per year in your region.  Given what populations have done in the Mid-Atlantic, it is highly likely that BMSB will become a pest in North Carolina as well.  In other states, significant feeding damage has occurred in pome or stone fruit. It will readily feed on vegetables (soybean, tomatoes, peppers and corn) and small fruit, although damage reports haven't been as severe in these crops to date.  I would expect it to feed on cotton, as other pentatomids do, but we don't have any data to confirm that yet.  Populations will be highest in late summer/early fall as the final adult generation prepares for diapause.  This adult generation is also highly attracted to blacklight traps, which are a very good way of identifying populations at low densities in the

farmscape.  Within two years of detection on farms in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, BMSB has negatively impacted the exant pentatomid community in terms of species richness and species evenness.  This is not surprising given the low rates of egg parasitism we have seen.  BMSB appears to be highly aggregated in the crops where it is present, although distributions can be patchy.

We noticed that new locations were usually first identified as a result of their overwintering behavior. George Hamilton and I set-up a website (which he still manages) that allows homeowners to learn about BMSB as well as report sightings.  We were able to learn of numerous new state records in this way and feel free to pass along the web site to your county offices and end-users.  I think it is important to have a centralized database for this type of information.

In other areas, there was a 3-5 year lag between the time of detection in a state and high numbers in agricultural crops.  However, I would not be surprised in BMSB has been in North Carolina for a few years already.

More information

Report a BMSB sighting - Rutgers University

Commercial Blackberry and Raspberry Field Day

The first NC Commercial Blackberry and Raspberry Field is being held Thursday, October 21 at the Sunny Ridge-Owls Den Farm in Lincolnton, NC from 9am to 12pm.  Antendees can rotate through a series of concurrent sessions on insect, cultural, fertility, and weed management followed by an equipment demonstration.  The program, which includes directions and presenter information can be found here.

I will be sharing information on our native caneberry pests as well as lots of updates on spotted wing drosophila.