Welasco, Texas, USA
June 16, 2014

A free Sugarcane Aphid Field Day will be held from 8:30-10:30 a.m. June 19 at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Weslaco, 2415 E. U.S. Highway 83.


Dr. Raul Villanueva, an AgriLife Extension entomologist, examines grain sorghum leaves for insect populations. A free Sugarcane Aphid Field Day will be held June 19 at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Weslaco. (AgriLife Communications photo by Rod Santa Ana)

One Texas Department of Agriculture continuing education unit will available for licensed pesticide applicators.

Registration will be held from 8-8:30 a.m. at the center’s Hoblitzelle Auditorium, according to Dr. Raul Villanueva, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service entomologist at the center.

“We’ll be sharing with growers the sugarcane aphid situation on grain sorghum here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, as well as the situation in other parts of the state,” he said. “We’ll also share results of chemical trials we’ve conducted here and what the forecast for aphid populations will be in the fall grain sorghum crop.”

Villanueva said sugarcane aphid populations “appear to have crashed to the point that they are hard to find right now. That could be due to a number of factors, including the fact that about 80 percent of growers treated their crops with insecticides.”

Those who did not spray are not likely to produce a good crop this year, he said.

For more information, contact Villanueva at 956-968-5581.
 

Website: http://agrilife.org/

Published: June 16, 2014