Junior Fair 4-H, Farm Science Review, stink bug update

Junior Fair 4-H entries were due in our office yes­ter­day for the Delaware County Fair which starts Sept. 15 and runs through Sept. 22. This is always a great time as we get to see all of the hard work that our county’s 4-H’ers have put in to their var­i­ous projects over the past few months. So be sure to come to the fair and sup­port our kids this year; go to some of the many Junior Fair live­stock shows, go through the barns and the Junior Fair Build­ing to see all the exhibits and much more.

I’m proud to announce our 2012 Agri­cul­ture Soci­ety Hall of Fame Win­ners: Tom Price and Earl Pool. Enshrine­ment in the Delaware County Agri­cul­tural Hall of Fame is the high­est form of recog­ni­tion in Delaware County for an indi­vid­ual who has made out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the agri­cul­tural indus­try. Each year up to two promi­nent agri­cul­tural lead­ers are hon­ored and inducted into the hall of fame for their exem­plary ser­vice, ded­i­ca­tion, lead­er­ship and sup­port­ive con­tri­bu­tions to agri­cul­ture and their sup­port in Delaware County.

Tom Price has been very involved in pro­mot­ing a pos­i­tive view of agri­cul­ture and he has made many con­tri­bu­tions in ser­vice to our com­mu­nity, one of them being his work to pro­vide res­i­dents and busi­nesses the oppor­tu­nity to recy­cle organic mate­ri­als and to pro­duce the high­est qual­ity com­post, soil and mulch. The late Earl Pool is hon­ored because of the many con­tri­bu­tions that he made through the years to fur­ther agri­cul­ture in Delaware County; many of these have been imple­mented into the Delaware County Agri­cul­tural Soci­ety today. Ethel Lehner of Rad­nor is Earl’s daugh­ter. Tom and Earl will be hon­ored at the fair at 11 a.m. Sept. 17 at the Ag Hall of Fame build­ing. Every­one is invited to attend.

As we head into Sep­tem­ber, I want to remind you that the Farm Sci­ence Review is right around the cor­ner. From Sept. 18 to 20 the review will mark it’s 50th year. The Farm Sci­ence Review will be held at Molly Caren Agri­cul­tural Cen­ter in Lon­don. Tick­ets are avail­able for sale at the OSU Exten­sion office for $5 in advance or $8 at the gate. Chil­dren 5 and under are free. The Review is spon­sored by the Col­lege of Food, Agri­cul­tural, and Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ences, Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion, and the Ohio Agri­cul­tural Research and Devel­op­ment Cen­ter. It attracts more than 140,000 vis­i­tors from all over the coun­try and Canada, who come for three days to peruse 4,000 prod­uct lines from 600 com­mer­cial exhibitors, and learn the lat­est in agri­cul­tural research, con­ser­va­tion, fam­ily and nutri­tion, gar­den­ing and landscape.

Stink Bugs in Soybeans

As you scout your fields be sure to be on the look­out for the brown mar­morated stink bug, “Although we did not expect it to be a con­cern” said Ron Ham­mond, OSU Exten­sion Spe­cial­ist, Ento­mol­ogy, “that thought has changed some­what over the past week in regards to this poten­tial pest and the rest of the stink bug com­plex that occur in soy­beans.” We have become aware of some soy­bean fields with much higher num­bers of stink bugs than are nor­mally seen, with some fields reach­ing a level that might need treat­ment. Ham­mond said that they have had reports of brown mar­morated stink bug from a few fields. With sup­port from the Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil, scout­ing trips have con­firmed brown mar­morated stink bugs in soy­bean. So far only adults are being seen, but obser­va­tions last year sug­gest that larger num­bers of nymphs will start occur­ring within a few weeks. Ham­mond said that they we are also see­ing greater num­bers of the green stink bug and a smaller stink bug that is also green but with a red­dish shoul­der, this lat­ter one is being called the red-shouldered stink bug. This is a new stink bug that has not been seen very much in Ohio. It is not the red banded stink bug that is caus­ing bog con­cern in south­ern states, but it could be a poten­tial prob­lem and lit­tle is known about its dam­age poten­tial. For the time being, we rec­om­mend group­ing all stink bugs together for deter­min­ing the need for treat­ment. Ham­mond said that through Ohio Soy­bean Coun­cil sup­port, they will expand their sam­pling for stink bugs over the next few weeks across the state.

To sam­ple for stink bugs, take mul­ti­ple 10-sweep sam­ples with a sweep net in mul­ti­ple loca­tions through­out the field. Aver­age the num­ber of stink bugs in the 10-sweep sam­ples. The thresh­old to treat is four or more stink bugs, adults or nymphs. The thresh­old can be dropped to two or more stink bugs — if soy­beans are being grown for seed. Pods should still be green. We would men­tion that we have already been in fields that meet this cri­te­rion. Because stink bugs often occur mainly on the field edges, espe­cially next to woody areas, Ham­mond sug­gest sam­pling both field edges and within the field to deter­mine which parts of the field might require treat­ment. See the soy­bean insect images page at tinyurl.com/cyy2po8 for pic­tures of the var­i­ous stink bugs. The ones most likely to be in Ohio soy­bean fields include the brown mar­morated stink bug, the green and red-shouldered stink bugs, the brown stink bug (with rounded shoul­ders) and the spined sol­dier bee­tle (with pointed shoul­ders), this last one actu­ally being a ben­e­fi­cial predator.

Rob Leeds is an OSU Exten­sion edu­ca­tor in Delaware County.

Posted by Rob Leeds on Aug 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.