This is the sugar beet report, bringing you the latest information from NDSU throughout the sugar beet growing season. Now that peak fly has passed, we can relax. Right? Nope. The sugar beet root maggot is feeding on your crops, and other insects are starting up. To guide us is Mark Boetel, NDSU Extension entomologist. Mark, now that we're past peak fly, what's the root maggot situation?

The infestations this year were much more moderate than many of the previous years, similar to last year but slightly higher infestations, so things are kind of spiking up maybe a little bit this year. The peaks in fly activity occurred about a week ahead of normal this year, but, from what I was hearing, growers did pretty well with timing their post insecticide applications. I believe most fields should be in pretty good shape with regard to protection from that pest.

Where are the hot spots?

There were some isolated hot spots. The highest activity in which I would classify as really severe included Cashel, Reynolds, and St. Thomas in North Dakota. Those were hovering I think we captured over a thousand flies at most of those locations, so that was a little over 500 per trap. We also had pretty high infestations at Ada and Boarup area as well in Minnesota, and then we had relatively high infestations at Auburn, Bozemont, Buxton, and Nash, North Dakota, as well as Sabin and Stephen in Minnesota.

What are the root maggots doing right now? Right now?

They are really in full swing with larval feeding activity, so we should start seeing some effects of, the feeding pressure on the roots, especially in under protected fields. So we'll see symptoms like wilting, potentially even dying plants, especially the later planted. We had replantings this season. Several thousand acres were replanted, so those were small to start with, and they're gonna be more vulnerable. Much of the area has received frequent or at least occasional rainfalls that were a decent amount in the past few weeks, so that should help offset some of that root maggot feeding injury. We're going into a period where, things are gonna warm up again, so that will probably expose some of those under protected fields. So again, we'll have those kind of symptoms that will be showing up, maybe include slower reduced canopy closure. And in some of those cases where the canopy doesn't close, weeds that may have escaped an herbicide application might start to poke through as well.

Mark, what other insects should we be watching for?

Yeah. So it may seem like we're kind of in a lull, but there are things that we need to keep an eye on the next several weeks. Certainly, grasshoppers can start popping up at this time, especially in areas that maybe missed some of those rainfalls. We also have lygus bugs that should start showing up pretty soon. I don't expect them to be a major problem this year because of the somewhat open winter we had and also, some decent cold snaps as well. But that's something to watch for, especially as some of the reservoir crops get harvested, that would mainly be alfalfa, but they do move into sugar beet from sunflower as well.

Mark, tell us about your plot tour coming up.

We have a plot tour, sure beet root maggot control plot tour at Saint Thomas, our usual location. It's the same township and section as it's been for the last, oh, about close to twenty years now. That's on July 17. We've got a 10AM sharp start. We'll have, several experiments to show people on root maggot control tactics, not only including currently registered conventional control tools, but also some experimental insecticides to look at. And then the, USDA folks will be there as well to showcase some of their breeding research for sugar beet root maggot resistance, so that's pretty exciting as well. And we'll also have other sugar beet extension specialists there for kind of a q and a session as well. We'll wrap it up then with lunch. We'll have refreshments throughout the tour. Lunch will be served at the Saint Thomas Fire Hall.

How can people get more information and directions to the tour?

Yes. They'd be best to go either to the American Crystal website to get directions and emailing went out to all the coops. And, you can also go to the NDSU, Sugar Beet Rumeggett Fly Count webpage and get your information on that from there.

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.