Insect Pressure

Insect activity throughout the Northern Plains is starting to pick up with the warmer weather. “We started to see some grasshopper activities, so you know it’s a good idea to be keeping an eye out for grasshoppers and scouting fields for grasshoppers,” said University of Minnesota Extension Entomologist Ian MacRae. “Aphids have started flying, so if you’re a seed potato grower and you’re concerned about virus vectors, you’re to want to be scouting the fields, and we’re starting to see soybean aphids in some of our traps, so things are starting off a bit slow but they’re there.”