New model predicts insect populations

Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a new tool for vegetable growers that provides them with information about insect pests in order to help control damage before it even starts.

Utilising Enviro-weather – a system of 64 weather stations throughout Michigan that collect a variety of weather-based data including soil moisture, air temperature, soil temperature and precipitation – researchers from across the university have tied weather data to information about several insect pests that commonly affect vegetable growers in the state.

Thanks to funding from Project GREEEN, Michigan's plant agriculture initiative based at MSU, the group was able to develop a model that can predict when pest populations are likely to be high or low.

"There were already models in the literature," said Beth Bishop, Enviro-weather program coordinator. "What our team had to do was go out and collect pest occurrence data for two years and see if our data matched the published models."

Using their information, which is based on degree days, Bishop's group was able to create predictive models for cabbage maggot, seed corn maggot, variegated cutworm and squash vine borer.

The latter two pests alone can cost growers a minimum of $100 per acre in insecticides and can result in as much as a 10 to 20 percent yield loss – or $800 to $1,600 per acre – if no control measures are taken. The researchers are also continuing to work on models for asparagus beetle and onion maggot.