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10 CapitalPress.com July 14, 2017 Idaho Subscribe to our weekly Idaho email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters Mormon crickets on the march in parts of Idaho By SEAN ELLIS Capital Press NAMPA, Idaho — Mor- mon crickets, which can dev- astate farm fi elds in short or- der during infestations, are on the march in parts of Idaho. Owyhee County vineyard owner Tom Elias said the harsh winter ruined about 85 percent of his wine grape crop in Marsing this year “and then (a few) weeks ago I had Mor- mon crickets come through and they fi nished it off.” Elias has dealt with the pest in past years but never to this extent. “Those suckers are huge this year; the biggest ones I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I woke up one morning to my house, my car, my tractor, greenhouse, everything, cov- ered in Mormon crickets. And they eat everything in sight.” The Idaho State Depart- ment of Agriculture, which handles Mormon cricket problems on state land — and private ground when asked — — has received a lot of calls in the past two weeks about the pest, said ISDA Plant In- dustries Administrator Lloyd Knight. “It’s plenty busy right At a glance Online Mormon cricket (Anabrus simplex) Go to the ISDA website at www.agri.idaho.gov and click on “Plants & Insects” on the left and then on “Grasshopper and Mormon Cricket Control Program.” These insects are actually a shield-backed katydid. The common name is derived from this pest’s destruction of the crops of Mormon settlers in the mid-1800s. Appearance: 1.5 to 2 inches long (adult phase). Varied color from gray green, purplish, brown to black. Hind tibiae are spiny; its wings are under- developed and it cannot fly. Behavior: One generation annually; outbreaks can last 5 to 10 years. Vast bands will migrate up to 50 miles, feeding on field and forage crops, fruit trees, vineyards and grains. Range: Found throughout Western Courtesy of U.S. North America. Geological Survey Habitat: Areas of rangeland shrubs, forbs and grasses. Damage: Voracious eaters, Mormon crickets have powerful mandibles that can strip trees of foliage and destroy their fruit. Source: Washington State University now,” he said. “Things are a lot busier than they were a few weeks ago.” Knight said the Mormon cricket infestations this year are location-specifi c. The de- partment has received a lot of calls from people in Washing- ton, Gem and Owyhee coun- ties. Alan Kenaga/Capital Press The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Ser- vice controls Mormon cricket infestations on federal lands. “We are seeing signifi - cantly higher Mormon crick- et populations on (Bureau of Land Management) land and a small amount of Forest Service land in southwestern USDA photo by Paul Ver Hagen Mormon crickets cross a road near Reynolds Creek in Owyhee County in southwestern Idaho. Idaho this year and we are re- ceiving more complaints from neighboring landowners as a result,” Brian Marschman, who heads the APHIS plant health program in Idaho, told Capital Press in an email. He said Owyhee and Washington counties have the highest populations this year. “In a few locations we have seen populations as high as 70 per square yard,” he said. APHIS has treated about 500 acres of BLM land in Owyhee County this year but hasn’t been able to treat larg- er tracts because of the higher than usual amount of water in the area and the presence of sensitive species, Marschman said. “We have seen the level of complaints drop after our limited treatments, though,” he said. Marschman said there is no clear explanation why Mormon cricket populations are much higher this year. Surveys in 2016 indicated an uptick from record low popu- lations from 2012 to 2015. “However, cricket infes- tations at this level were not expected,” he added. Marschman said his agen- cy has not seen or heard about high grasshopper numbers anywhere in the state. The ISDA, when asked, distributes bait free of charge to private landowners with more than 5 acres of farm- land. The department distrib- uted 89,000 pounds of bait to 138 landowners last year for Mormon cricket and grass- hopper suppression. Researchers test sterile litchi tomato as nematode ‘trap crop’ By JOHN O’CONNELL Capital Press ABERDEEN, Idaho — Researchers are conducting fi eld trials with a new, sterile version of litchi tomato — a “trap crop” that stimulates hatching of destructive pale cyst nematodes in the absence of a viable host. PCN, a microscopic worm that can survive in soil for decades without a host and dramatically reduces pota- to yields, was discovered in Eastern Idaho in 2006. A 7.5- mile radius of Bonneville and Bingham counties — the only location in the U.S. where the pest is known to exist — is under quarantine while USDA and the Idaho State Department of Agriculture work to eradicate it. In recent years, University of Idaho has used litchi toma- to as an alternative control method to methyl bromide, a powerful fumigant that has been phased out of the erad- ication program for environ- mental reasons. But use of litchi tomato has been strictly monitored and special protocols have been established to destroy viable seeds to prevent the trap crop from spreading and becoming a new weed in the area. “We feel great about this because it answers concerns that this could become a weed itself by escaping out in the fi eld,” University of Idaho Extension weed scientist Pam Hutchinson said. Due to a shortage of litchi tomato seed, only one quar- antined commercial fi eld has been planted in litchi toma- to this summer. Hutchinson transplanted about 2,000 of Contributed photo A potato psyllid. ‘Hot’ potato psyllid confi rmed in Power County Capital Press John O’Connell/Capital Press University of Idaho Extension weed scientist Pam Hutchinson shows a plot of sterile litchi tomato on July 6. The trap crop, used to control pale cyst nematode, was transplanted at the UI’s Aberdeen Research and Extension Center. the new sterile litchi tomato seedlings into a plot within the trap crop fi eld. Hutchinson has been pleased by the health of the sterile plants in the com- mercial plot, as well as in a demonstration plot in Aber- deen. “The main reason why we transplanted them down here was to make sure they could grow in our conditions in a quarantined fi eld near Shel- ley,” Hutchinson said. Chuck Brown, a research geneticist with USDA’s Ag- ricultural Research Service in Prosser, Wash., developed a litchi tomato seed without prickles from European vari- eties. Joe Kuhl, a UI associate professor of plant genetics, generated sterile litchi toma- to from Brown’s seed. Kuhl explained he used laboratory methods to induce a litchi to- mato variety with two sets of chromosomes, called a dip- loid, to have four sets of chro- mosomes, called a tetraploid. He then conventional- ly crossed the diploid with the tetraploid and identifi ed progeny with three sets of chromosomes, which are ster- ile. Kuhl will likely use labora- tory tissue cultures to expand sterile litchi tomato for com- mercial planting. He said the challenge will be producing enough seedlings while keeping costs down. “We are using a series of experimental protocols to de- termine whether the scaling up can be coupled with cost-sav- ing measures,” Kuhl said. In commercial fi eld testing by UI’s PCN program director, Louise-Marie Dandurand, li- tchi tomato reduced PCN eggs by 45 percent and cyst multi- plication by 75 percent. Hutchinson has also con- ducted herbicide trials in li- tchi tomato, identifying three products that help control weeds without harming the trap crop. AMERICAN FALLS, Ida- ho — A potato psyllid recently collected from a sticky trap at a Power County potato fi eld has tested positive for the Li- beribacter bacterium, which causes zebra chip disease. According to an alert sent July 7 to growers, a Universi- ty of Idaho scouting program captured 31 psyllids from sticky cards during the preced- ing week. Psyllids were found in 20 of 95 fi elds involved in the university’s program. Another psyllid captured at UI’s Kimberly Research and Extension Center also tested positive for Liberibacter in early June. Experts say psyllid pressure has been light this year com- pared to last summer, though little zebra chip disease surfaced in the 2016 potato crop. Zebra chip disease creates bands in tuber fl esh that dark- en during frying. The disease, spread by the tiny, winged psyl- lids, was fi rst confi rmed in the Northwest during 2011. The UI program is intended to alert growers of the presence of psyl- lids harboring Liberibacter to guide their insecticide spray- ing decisions. 28-1/#04x
