David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu
Congratulations to John Hochmuth and Grier Stayton for correctly identifying the depression in barley as being caused by some sort of mammal laying down. The clue is the small blue boot in the photo. If you’ve seen me in a field, I generally dress in earth-tones. The boot is my 2 year old field assistant who got tired of standing while I counted aphids. Folks everywhere are being creative and flexible to get things done under the current c-virus time.
The second photo was actually of greenbug damage! We do not often see large numbers of greenbugs in Delaware, but it does happen. We had decent numbers in Georgetown in early March, but by the end of March, greenbug populations had crashed. The below photo was taken at Beltsville, MD from an affected portion of the field. In the photo there is even a fungal infected aphid near the top of the left-most leaf. Aphid populations have declined in our area recently in part due to fungal infection and parasitic wasp activity.
