Reduce Sawfly Damage

The Solution to Winter Wheat Sawfly Damage – SBb 2.5 & SPE 120

Beauveria Bassiana (Bb) is a biological seed inoculant that helps protect winter wheat from damage by sawflies and their larvae. SBb-2.5 (conventional) and SPE-120 (organic) contain Beauveria bassiana and are available from Terregena.com to farmers in the United States and Canada.

Winter wheat and small grain farmers who have used SBb-2.5 and SPE-120 have reported excellent results in terms of sawfly control. In fact, many farmers have been so pleased with the results that they have switched to using (Bb) products exclusively for sawfly control.

SAWFLIES AND THE IMPACT ON WHEAT

Sawflies can have a devastating impact on wheat crops. They are particularly troublesome in the US and Canada, where they are one of the most common insect pests affecting wheat production. Sawflies feed on the leaves of wheat plants. Moreover, the female sawfly cuts a notch in the stem to lay her eggs, which can cause the plants to become weakened and break. In some cases, sawfly infestations can be fatal to wheat plants.

Sawfly

wheat sawflies
Sawfly

What is Beauveria bassiana and how can it help reduce sawfly damage?

Beauveria bassiana is a beneficial fungal spore that is a symbiotic endophyte. It is incorporated into the plant and grows inside the plant as the plant grows. Among its many benefits, the Beauveria bassiana is detected by the sawfly and is repelled by it.

SBb and SPE Can Help Protect Wheat Plants Against Sawflies

Our products offer an effective, safe solution for managing insect pests in winter wheat crops. They are easy to apply and provide long-lasting protection against sawflies and other insect pests.

SBb 2.5 and SPE-120 utilize a natural, symbiotic fungus. The fungus lives in the soil, roots, stems, and leaves. Our strains are isolated from plants, for plants. Once plants are inoculated with SBb 2.5/SPE-120, a symbiotic relationship begins immediately as the plant grows, extending colonies throughout the plant, where they remain throughout the season until harvest, benefiting its host.

How to Apply SBb or SPE 120

When applied as a seed treatment, SBb or SPE help to ensure that the Beauveria bassiana is present in the plant from the very beginning. This gives the wheat a better chance of surviving an attack from sawflies or other insect pests.

Direct contact with the seed is preferred to assure plant entry at germination. Applied on, under, or atop of seed allows SBb-2.5 or organic SPE 120 a competitive preference to the initial plant roots where Beauveria bassiana becomes a premier symbiotic endophyte within the plant.

It can also be used as a foliar spray. The foliar application should be made in a minimum of 100 gallons of water per acre with sufficient agitation to maintain a uniform suspension. Be sure to cover all parts of the plant, including the leaves and stems. For best results, apply SBb or SPE 120 at least two weeks before sawfly larvae are expected to hatch in your area.

IN CONCLUSION

Our products are safe and will not harm people or the environment. SBb and SPE are effective ways to protect winter wheat plants against sawfly damage. This biological seed inoculant contains the endophyte Beauveria bassiana, which sawflies don’t like. It serves as a feeding deterrent and repellent and the insect moves away from it. When applied as a seed treatment, SBb 2.5 and SPE 120 can help ensure that your wheat crop survives a sawfly attack.

If you have any questions about SBb and SPE or how they can be used to protect your wheat crop, contact Jim Skinner at jim@terregena.com, or call Jim at 919-609-4564.

Potato Early Dying Complex

Potato Early Dying Complex – Control Nematodes from Eating Into Potato Roots.

Potato early dying complex is caused by two sources: a nematode and a hostile endophyte (Verticillium) that enters and grows inside the plant.

Potato Early Dying Disease Makes Crops Unmarketable.

Our Beauveria bassiana (Bb) REPELS the nematode to the extent that the nematode will not eat the root which would have created an opening for a hostile endophyte to enter the plant.

Potato early dying complex shown here.
Potato early dying complex is obvious in this potato field.

When Beauveria bassiana is used to coat seed potatoes/seeds, it is incorporated into the roots and grows in the plant between the plant cells in a symbiotic relationship.

The Beauveria bassiana repels the nematode to the extent that the nematode will not eat the root which would have created the opening for the hostile endophyte to enter the plant.

In addition, as the symbiotic Beauveria bassiana is growing inside the plant, the hostile Verticillium is excluded from also growing inside the plant.

The results from using our Beauveria bassiana, which we have researched and developed over more than 20 years, are:

  1. Healthier plants
  2. More uniform potatoes meaning increased yield of premium potatoes and higher revenues/profits.
  3. Increased yield of more than 20 CWT per acre
  4. Potatoes with a significantly longer storage life
  5. Pick outs reduced from 23% to 2%
No wireworms in these potatoes!

Natural Scientific Solution SBb 2.5 or SPE 120 – Beauveria bassiana Repels Nematodes!

  • Beauvaria bassiana (Bb) is a plant health enhancer. It grows in harmony and interstitially within the roots, stems, and leaves of the plant, strengthening the plant as it grows.
  • Beauvaria bassiana helps plants fend off future pathogens and diseases.
  • Once in the ground, the active Bb spores can live in the soil for seven years or more, benefiting future planting.
  • Bb already exists naturally in the soil but due to current farming practices, it has been tilled out of the soil. We are simply adding back nature’s method of protecting plants from disease and pests.
  • It is safe for humans, plants, and beneficial insects

Wireworms

Wireworms, the click beetle’s larvae, cause serious damage to potatoes and have a devastating impact on potato crops. While maturing, they live in the soil and feed on potato tubers.

wireworms

Wireworms Can Make Root Crops Unsellable.

As described by the University of Nebraska Lincoln, Wireworm damage appears as straight, round holes with smooth walls.

Early in the season around planting, wireworms may drill into seed tubers or seed pieces thereby weakening them possibly resulting in secondary infection, especially by soft rot, in reduced stands, and in weakened young plants.

Wireworms also can feed on young sprouts with the same results. During the season, although not common, wireworms could damage roots and underground stems. For potatoes, the major damage is later in the season when tubers are maturing after bulking. Late-season damage will result when larvae feed on tubers causing feeding scars or feeding tunnels. The result of this feeding is reduced quality of the harvested tubers.

Natural Scientific Solution SBb 2.5 or SPE 120 – Beauveria bassiana Repels Wireworms!

  • Beauvaria bassiana is a feeding deterrent.
  • Wireworms don’t like the smell of the Bb within the plant, so they won’t eat it.
  • Wireworms move slowly, losing energy when they don’t eat. In their efforts to find a different feed source they use valuable remaining energy and usually die or starve to death.
  • Beauvaria bassiana is a plant health enhancer. It grows in harmony and interstitially within the roots, stems, and leaves of the plant, strengthening the plant as it grows.
  • Beauvaria bassiana help plants fend off future pathogens and diseases.
  • Once in the ground, the active Bb spores can live in the soil for seven years or more, benefiting future planting.
  • Bb already exists naturally in the soil but due to current farming practices, it has been tilled out of the soil.  We are simply adding back nature’s method of protecting plants from disease and pests.
  • It is safe for humans, plants, and beneficial insects.

Beauveria bassiana is a symbiotic or friendly plant fungus. It is alive. When Beauveria bassiana, is incorporated into the root, it grows within the plant as the plant grows. This relationship has existed in nature but has been lost as the naturally Beauveria bassiana has been tilled out of the soil. We are simply adding back nature’s method of protecting plants from disease and pests.

No wireworms in these potatoes!

The results from using our Beauveria bassiana, which we have researched and developed over more than 20 years, are:

Healthier plants

More uniform potatoes mean an increased yield of premium potatoes and higher revenues/profits.

Increased yield of more than 20 CWT per acre

Potatoes with a significantly longer storage life

Pick outs reduced from 23% to 2%

Field of potatoes without wireworms.

Darkling Beetle Control with balEnce Fungal Spray

balEnce – featured in Canadian Poultry Magazine

 

Darkling Beetle Control — Best Strategies – and Positive Reports from Ontario on use of Fungal Product

 

Picture of a darkling beetle

By Treena Hein — May 2019

Al Dam, poultry specialist at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, says that in 2018, he had more inquiries about darkling beetle infestations than he had in a long time. Is it resistance to insecticides, loss of certain insecticides, improper application of products, general biosecurity management, or all of the above?  We’re not sure,” he reports. The temperature in 2018 was pretty high in some areas in the summer, and that was obviously great for insects. In every situation I heard about, producers were seeing more and more of the beetles over time and may not have realized necessarily how bad things had gotten until they saw a population explosion. Some producers say Dam are also seeing populations of hairy fungus beetle that feed on fungus in straw, and that is the way it gets into the barn). To combat this, some farmers have switched from straw to shavings, switchgrass, cardboard products, or peat moss, but Dam notes that producers should double-check to make sure any new bedding choice is in line with the approved beddings in their board on-farm food safety program.

 

DARKLING BEETLE CONTROL

With darkling beetle, as with any insect pest, a multi-prolonged approach is needed. In conjunction with other control factors, some producers are having success with a targeted fungal product called balEnce ES-Beetle. These products take a while to work, Dam points out. You must use the product properly and also keep up with the application recommendations to achieve and maintain control.

Press Release - Darkling Beetles Enter a Poultry Barn Door

Darkling Beetles Enter a Poultry Barn Door

The active material in balEnce, explains Jim Skinner (owner of U.S.-based distributor Terregena and former adjunct professor at Western Carolina University in North Carolina) is a fungal spore that was discovered by an Italian entomologist 200 years ago. It occurs naturally in soils around the world and is host-specific. Some years ago, a scientist at North Carolina State University was able to isolate the strains that specifically target darkling beetle, and strains for other insects as well, Skinner says. It’s available in liquid concentrate and powder. Skinner says they both work similarly and that most farmers use the liquid.

The spores are picked up by the darkling beetle, and the spores then grow, reproduce and kill the insect in one-to-five days. Jordon Poelman, has used balEnce for five years at his family’s broiler farm in Bayfield, Ontario. He’s seen very good results for control of both darkling beetles and flies, and he has become a product distributor. For the family’s older barns, which had a very high pressure of darkling beetles, the Poelmans were spending significant time and resources on chemical sprays and commercial fogging services. However, within three cycles of using balEnce, Poelman says both adult beetles and larva were not very noticeable, and that the beetles have never developed any resistance to the product.

Barn humidity control is also important in darkling beetle control. You need to keep manure dry, so it’s about good ventilation and also managing water usage, Poelman says. Proper line heights are needed and really high water quality is also very important. With very high water quality (I use Hydroxyl II), you have less water wastage, better feed consumption and less ventilation are needed. I also do dry clean in between flocks, and a heavy-duty wash once a year with Hydroxyl II. Poelman also values a broiler Facebook group where ideas and solutions for insect pests, achieving water quality, and more are discussed.

When asked about the importance of keeping manure dry, Ontario broiler producer and balEnce -ES user Alex Westerhout reports that he’s not sure as he finds most of the beetles come out when he turns on the heat at the start of the flock and the litter is dry. My litter is normally very dry anyway, he adds. Westerhout has been using the product for about four years since he heard about it through Poelman. He applies it with a backpack sprayer along the base of interior walls and around posts as well. I do it every crop before the bedding is placed with enough time to let it dry before the bedding goes down, he says. He’s used both Sevin Dust and Debantic 50 WP products in the past and says these products didn’t result in any decrease in the darkling beetle population. Debantic (from Bayer) is a wettable powder that can be applied as a premise spray, dust, or directly to birds to control a variety of pests in poultry and livestock barns. Bayer says it also offers Credo, a premise spray for the control of darkling beetles in poultry barns and can be applied as a broadcast, band, spot, or crack treatment. Tempo is another Bayer pest control powder product that’s mixed with water and applied as a general premise spray to control darkling beetles, flies, and more. Westerhout isn’t sure if he saved money using balEnce but he says he doesn’t really care. It’s been very effective, he says . I saw lots of dead beetles for about one year and then I had a large crop of dead larvae everywhere. Since then, I just see a few beetles every crop. I don’t think you ever totally eradicate the beast once infested — the eggs can take a long time to hatch after being laid in the walls.