This is the sugar beet report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. The sugar beet battle with the root maggot is about to peak, and there are other insects gearing up. To guide us is Mark Boetel, NDSU Extension entomologist. Mark, what's going on with the root maggot this year?

Last year, in which we had, lower populations than probably the last four or five years, so that was good news. Our numbers are up slightly compared to last year, but they are at what I would consider manageable levels in most locations. The situation of where we're at with peak fly and things like that, the root maggot peaked a little early this year, about a week ahead of normal. We suspect that those peaks happened between Friday and Saturday of this past week. Yes. A little bit ahead of average. We still will probably see some decent activity on the sticky steak traps both from Monday that has already occurred and then our trap counts on Wednesday as well. And that will kind of be an artifact of the cool weather that we had the last couple of days.

Where are the hot spots this year?

Hot spots on the North Dakota side, I would really emphasize Cashel, which is Northeast of Grafton, kind of in the Auburn area, but east of there. That location, we're reporting more than twice the activity of any other site throughout the valley. Very high activity in that area. Other spots, that are of concern in North Dakota include Reynolds, Saint Thomas, Buxton, Vesleyville, down in kind of the Minto area, Auburn, Nash, Bozemont, which is North of Drayton, and then Cavalier. And then on the Minnesota side of the river, we have Ada, Borup, Saban, and Stephen, Minnesota.

So, Mark, what are those little buggers doing right now?

Right now, they're kind of got their napkins on. They're just gonna start feeding on the roots. So they're just kinda getting going with larval feeding and injury. The eggs are hatching, and that's gonna happen for two, two and a half weeks here yet. You know, there's still gonna be a little bit of egg laying going on. If the weather warms up, some plants certainly in under protected fields, we may start to see some wilting and dying of plants, and that would be especially the case in fields that were replanted. We had several cases of replanted fields this year. So hopefully, those fields do have good insecticide protection because those tiny plants trying to develop at the time when larvae are just beginning to feed and then going into peak feeding activity in a couple of weeks will really be vulnerable to attack. Any other insect pests that are showing up? Yes. The main one that comes to mind right now are springtails. I've heard the last few days really of some springtail issues and a couple weeks ago as well. The symptoms include poor emergence or failure to emerge, and it's usually in kind of a patchy distribution throughout the field.

Is there a remedy for springtails once the field's been planted?

Good question. And, unfortunately, we do not have a good remedy for that. We just can't get the rescue insecticides, the after planting post emergence insecticides to penetrate the soil deeply enough to kill them. The only resolution at this point is to either leave the field as is or replant. We're pushing up on when it's really practically too late to do that. If a replant is done, certainly in a case like that, we wanna make sure there's insecticide at planting either in the form of an at plant sprayable liquid or granule or a seed treatment.

Mark, tell us about your plot tour coming up in a few weeks.

Yes. Our Saint Thomas Root Maggot Control Plot Tour is gonna occur on July 17, and we have eight pretty interesting experiments laid out there for root maggot control. USDA has some research there as well on breeding for root maggot resistance. An additional benefit is that we'll have refreshments during the tour and a free lunch will be served as well at the fire hall.

Mark, how can people get more information and directions to the tour?

Yes. They can find those details on the, Fly Counts webpage. It's a very easy keyword search of NDSU root maggot and fly counts. Those kind of keywords will find it. Typically, American Crystal also posted on their website.

Thanks, Mark. Our guest has been Mark Boetel, NDSU Extension Entomologist. This is the sugar beet report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season.