Pests & Diseases

As their name implies, sugarcane aphids have been a significant pest in sugarcane for decades. These small yellow, gray or tan aphids (Photo 1) feed on the underside of the plant leaf. The host range of these aphids was thought to only include sugarcane, but that changed in 2013.

Although many vertebrate pests cause problems in alfalfa, the most frequent offenders are often pocket gophers (geomyidae) and meadow voles (also known as meadow mice; Microtus spp.). Pocket gophers are short, stout burrowing rodents, usually 6 to 8 inches in length.

Some of the more panicked calls I receive during summer months are from silage corn growers who have suddenly discovered they have a spider mite infestation in their fields. In many cases, it seems the mites that weren’t there yesterday have multiplied an hundredfold overnight.

The arid climate and open spaces of our Western states create the perfect combination for providing low disease pressure, which allows us the ability to produce high-quality forages.

Newer irrigation systems like drip and subsurface drip irrigation (SDI) have been used by cutting-edge alfalfa growers for quite some time.

The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia sits squarely in the fescue belt. As an extension agent, I hear a lot about fescue toxicosis from the academic side, but rarely does it make its way into the real-world conversations I hear in the field.