Written with contributions by Emmanuel Byamukama, former SDSU Extension Plant Pathologist, David Vos, Jill Alms, Leon J. Wrage, Shelby Pritchard and Dalitso Yabwalo.
The South Dakota Pest Management guides are now available for free. The guides offer recommendations for controlling weeds, insects, and diseases in a variety of South Dakota crops.
In the last few years, red sunflower seed weevils have been the most economically damaging insect pest in South Dakota. To identify alternative management options, researchers at SDSU and the USDA-ARS lab in Fargo, ND conducted a study evaluating early planting dates as a potential strategy to reduce red sunflower seed weevil infestations.
This guide focuses on forbs, or flowering “broad-leaved” herbaceous plants, but forbs can be narrow-leaved as well.
A black light trap at the SDSU West River Research Farm near Sturgis has started capturing army cutworm moths. This indicates that the moths that migrated west this spring are returning to the South Dakota plains to lay eggs.