Week 7: The Great Debate

The article was about seed company's rights to there "intellectual property". There cannot be complete and thorough tests on every aspect of the plant that their seed will produce without violation of the intellectual property. This is preventing producers from information that proves whether or not the technology in the seed/plant is paying off for the producer to buy it.

I think that the producers should have more knowledge about what they are actually buying. The producers are the ones doing all the work to make all the grain that the country uses. They should be the driving factor behind the seed market since they are the ones producing all of the grain. The producer should also be able to tell the seed company what kind of traits that would thrive better in the environment in which that producer lives. The seed companies do need to have some say in what is being produced as far as the technology in the seed in that making a couple hundred bags of seed for one farmer and another couple hundred bags of seed for a different farmer will start to add up in cost because there won't be a "bulk" production line. There needs to be a happy medium. But as we stand now the seed company has most of the control.

There could be changes for different areas like if the northern regions don't have an insect problem then that trait could be left out of the seed as well as if a southern state didn't have to deal with another certain insect. As of now the producer has to buy the all of the traits in the bag or none. Other traits such as height and performance in soil type need to be taken into effect. Most of the corn seed produced today is made for the corn belt (Nebraska and I0wa) places with rich black soil. There needs to be corn that can yield well in sandier soils, hotter temps, and drier weather.

I think researchers have the right idea on wanting to get the "truth" or real data out to the growers. I think it would be an opportunity for a producer to really get results in growing the crops.

There should be a full line of data that comes out with the variety showing all data like drought tolerance, yields in all corn growing areas, as well as anything else that could factor in when a producer is choosing a brand and variety. There should also be data that compares with other competitor brands, this would be somewhat hard to do with new varieties coming out all of the time.

I think that if there is an insect that is a problem year after year that biotechnology should be planted along with a refuge so we don't start to see BT resistance. An area with high populations of corn borer or corn ear-worm, I would think that GMO corn would pay. With less loss of grain to the insects I think that food security would increase some but I'm not sure that it completely solves the problem.

All in all there are two sides to the argument. I do think the seed companies should have a good amount of their opinion because they are investing a lot of money and time and technology into the seed. The producers also should have a good amount of say since they are the ones needing the seed to feed the rest of the country.

Week 6: Predator Prey

This week we monitored a lady beetle (predator) that hadn't eaten for a while go after aphids (prey) on a soybean leaf. Functional response would be a description of the behavior and they reach a plateau after they are full and don't want to eat anymore. The variables would be how aggressive the insect is as well as how hungry they are and how big they are (the capacity they are able to take in).
My lady beetle was fairly hungry when it first started eating on the aphids. The beetle ate 6 aphids with 60 seconds of handling time making the average 10 seconds per aphid. There is some error on this due to my error of not getting the stop watch started and stopped on the exact times with the beetle.
My times were:aphid 1 - 7.84 secaphid 2 - 8.07 sec
aphid 3 - 6.04 sec (small aphid)
aphid 4 - 10.67 sec
aphid 5 - 11.88 sec
aphid 6 - 15.47 sec
I started the time when the beetle grabbed an aphid and stopped the time when the aphid was completely out of site. As we can see the more aphids that were eaten the longer it took the beetle. Other than eating the beetle would groom itself and just sit there. The beetle eating 6 aphids that quickly was pretty cool to watch.
The group part my job was to trace the insect as well as time the beetle when it was resting/grooming.Our beetle never did eat any aphids mostly just walked around the box with a few stops along the way.
Test #1 first beetle:
5min 29 seconds walking and 1 min 30 sec resting/grooming. The beetle did not spend any time eating.Test #2 second beetle:
3min 23 seconds walking and 3min and 37 sec resting/grooming. This beetle didn't spend any time eating as well.
There is some error on the times taken of the beetle's activity due to human error on the stop watch and time delay on the time between the beetle changing its activity and getting the stop watch stopped.
Both beetles took random patterns. The first one walked all around the box never going to the leaves to eat. The second beetle just stayed in one part of the box mostly standing around. I was surprise that the beetles never made it to the aphids being starved for as long as they were.

This was a good experience monitoring a hungry insect's behavior around prey for them to eat. This exercise is good to show how an insect can act out in the field to show how some move around and get to what they want to, it can help on how to manage some pests.

Insect Feeding Damage Lab

This week we looked at insect feeding on corn sorghum and soybeans.

The damage consisted of feeding on grain or leaves. Another type of damage that was observed was grain starting to rot probably caused from the disease entering where the insects have fed.



The feeding on corn consisted on kernels being fed on mostly towards the tops of the ears. There was some feeding through the husks into the ear. There was also signs of ear rots starting to show. These types of diseases are favored when there is a plant injury that could be caused by insect feeding.


The damage we saw on beans was feeding on the leaves. Some leaves had a few holes others were mostly gone with feeding. The feeding could be from worms or other insects with chewing mouth parts like a grasshopper.


The damage we saw on sorghum was feeding on the grain in the heads. Some heads had a few grains others were almost completely eaten. Damage could consist of worm feeding or even birds feeding on the grain. One big problem year after year in sorghum is corn earworm or headworms.


Estimating the damage is not an easy task. Two people may have completely different perspectives on how much the damage actually is. Another thing to consider is if the damage could affect yield. A little bit of leaf feeding would not be a big deal when related to yields. Getting a good feel for how much the damage will affect the yields is a good skill when consulting with producers. Another thing to look for is the insects themselves, though they might not be very evident even if they are there.

My results were pretty consistent in the soybeans and sorghum. My corn results were off more than in the other two crops.

This lab was not too tough. The tough part of this would be to perform in the field without having the correct answers via a scanner. Acquiring skills that lead you close to the right amount of damage would be a big help out in the field.

What's in the Bag

My experience with this lab on sorting insects from the field felt like a nice review for me. I could sort through the bag pretty easily and knew for the most part what each insect was.I found orders like lepidoptera, hemiptera, diptera, and coleoptera. I also sorted the insects into the way they feed or type of mouth-parts.

As you can see above are pictures of a grasshopper and a labeled drawing of parts of the insect.

There were many different mouth-parts in the bags of insects. I found chewing, piercing-sucking, and siphoning mouth-parts in my bags. I could see some limitations doing this lab in the field instead of the lab room. We would not have the access to the microscopes to get a better look at the mouth-parts of the insects, and if a person is out scouting alone they wouldn't have anyone to consult with about what they are seeing.

Test

This is a test. Entom 767.