It is April and the sugarcane aphid is much farther north in the High Plains of Texas far earlier this year than in the past. We were hoping this serious pest of sorghum would arrive in June as it did in 2015, but our overwintering studies during the winter have confirmed that it is only 50 miles south of here. (Last year's post describes this pest.) The aphids may already be here in low numbers, but if not it won't be long before the winged adults arrive.
And so it begins, intensive research on this insect with the goal of helping sorghum growers avoid as much damage as possible so that they can make a profit on the crop. (Or at least not lose so much money; too often 2015 was about losses.) Sorghum production on the Texas High Plains will be down this year, and right now it looks like at least a 50% reduction simply due to the sugarcane aphid. We are entomologists and we practice and promote Integrated Pest Management (IPM). How we deal with sugarcane aphid is a textbook case of IPM; bring every weapon to bear on a problem - first to avoid it and then to control it. We alter planting dates, we encourage beneficial insects (generalist predators) by not using harsh insecticides, we recommend seed treatments so as to go 45 days after planting without damaging infestations, we encourage the use of resistant hybrids, or those thought to be resistant (there has not been enough time to fully evaluate them on the High Plains), we encourage scouting so that treatment decisions are based on actual numbers of insects in the field. And when an insecticide truly is needed, we encourage fast action and follow-up monitoring.
However, this year is equally as bad as last year in terms of funding for the work we need to do. All of the grant funding went to the Gulf Coast, as it has for the last three years since the sugarcane aphid was discovered there. This is in spite of the fact that the aphid is a far more virulent pest on the High Plains where we have hotter days, cooler nights, more intense sunlight and fewer beneficial insects in the system at the start of aphid season. Our treatment thresholds are far lower than those on the Gulf Coast, yet there is no serious funding to figure out the best practices on the High Plains.
So on the High Plains we are once again faced with doing all of our work with reserve funds built up over the last 15 years or so, and the bank account does not have many zeros left and will soon be depleted. My colleagues and I just committed to purchase equal shares to buy an expensive small plot sorghum thresher so that we can take yield data from our plots. We will get a little bit of funding from the companies that sell insecticides that kill sugarcane aphids, but we won't have funding from commodity groups, statewide and federal sources. We don't have money to grow sorghum on the Experiment Station, and we don't have money to drive one or two counties away every week to help each other take data. (It takes may hours to count thousands of sugarcane aphids on leaves. A nine treatment, 4 replication experiment takes 5 people 6 hours to count.) So we will drain our thin accounts to get the work done.
In the end, and probably this year when we have nothing left in the bank, we will have to stop working on the sugarcane aphid problem. For now we will keep going in spite of the difficulties because we know that what we do is important to our sorghum growers. We do good work that matters, and sometimes that is enough, at least for a while until fiscal realities force us to stop.
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