Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey Annual Report for Wyoming

Fiscal Year 1995

Report prepared by Kiana Rogers

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Lou Bjostad and Elisa Bernklau. They have been very helpful to me. The Wyoming CAPS program has been greatly influenced by their suggestions and cooperation. They have given me many wonderful ideas. Thank you for all of your help!

I would like to thank Bob Lavigne for helping me every time I needed it.

I would like to thank all of the agencies, Weed & Pest Supervisors and additional persons who took the time to fill out release forms and provide me with their information on bioagent releases and redistribution efforts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MEETINGS
APHELINUS AETHIOPOIDES AND RHINOCYLLUS CONICUS
OTHER ACTIVITIES
GATHERING OF HISTORICAL INFORMATION
1996 SPECIAL PROJECT PROPOSALS
TESTING OF THE NEW NAPIS
BASIC CAPS PROGRAM PARTICIPATION
A. STATE SURVEY COMMITTEE
B. CAPS NATIONAL AND REGIONAL MEETINGS
C. DATA ENTRY
D. MAIL
Information Requests about Pests of Special Concern
PPQ PROGRAM PESTS
GYPSY MOTH, 1994
GYPSY MOTH, 1995
RUSSIAN WHEAT APHID MONITORING
BIOCONTROL OF RUSSIAN WHEAT APHID
CEREAL LEAF BEETLE SURVEYS
BIOCONTROL OF CEREAL LEAF BEETLE
BIOCONTROL OF WEEDS
1995 SPECIAL PROJECTS
A. WYOMING CORE PROJECT: ENTRY AND MANAGEMENT OF APHIS PROGRAM RELATED SURVEY DATA
B. WYOMING CORE PROJECT: BIOCONTROL OF WEEDS COMPLETION
C. MAPPING
D. 1995 SURVEY FOR CEREAL LEAF BEETLE IN WYOMING
E. GRASSHOPPER HOTSPOT SURVEY AND MANAGEMENT
F. GYPSY MOTH, DETECTION AND DELIMITING SURVEY

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURE 1. THE 1994 GYPSY MOTH SURVEY - RECORDS OF CAPTURE IN WYOMING
FIGURE 2. THE 1995 GYPSY MOTH SURVEY
TABLE 1. 1995 RUSSIAN WHEAT APHID SUCTION TRAP CAPTURES
TABLE 2. RUSSIAN WHEAT APHID RELEASES DURING 1995
FIGURE 3. THE 1995 CEREAL LEAF BEETLE SURVEY
FIGURE 3. THE 1995 RECOVERY OF TETRASTICHUS JULIS
TABLE 3. CEREAL LEAF BEETLE RELEASES
TABLE 4. BIOAGENTS RELEASED IN WYOMING ON WEEDS DURING 1995 FISCAL YEAR
TABLE 5. AGENCIES INVOLVED IN BIOCONTROL ACTIVITIES IN 1995
TABLE 6. REDISTRIBUTION OF APHTHONA NIGRISCUTIS FROM COLLECTION SITES WITHIN WYOMING DURING 1995
TABLE 7. TOTAL NUMBER OF WEED BIOAGENT RELEASES MADE IN EACH COUNTY IN 1995

1995 CAPS Annual Narrative Report For The State of Wyoming

Period Covered: 10/01/94 to 09/30/95

Meetings

Aphelinus aethiopoides and Rhinocyllus conicus

Other Activities

Ms. Rogers created a cereal leaf beetle packet that included a National Cereal Leaf Beetle map, a map illustrating positive finds in Wyoming, and a Fact Sheet on Cereal Leaf Beetle. The packets were given to Drs. Legg, Ferrell, Brewer, Lavigne, Lockwood, Whitson, and Miller of the University of Wyoming.

A site on the World Wide Web, WWW, has been set up for the Wyoming CAPS program by Ms. Rogers. She played a role in designing web home pages for the Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences department at University of Wyoming. The Wyoming CAPS page provides worldwide distribution of CAPS information. The site contains information on the gypsy moth and cereal leaf beetle positive finds, weed distribution maps, maps of biocontrol activities on weeds and insects. All 1995 maps will be available soon. The address of the Wyoming CAPS web site is:

Gathering of Historical Information

1996 Special Project Proposals

Testing of the New NAPIS

Basic CAPS Program Participation

C. Data Entry

D. Mail

Information Requests about Pests of Special Concern

c) Oriental Fruit Moth
Mr. Pheasant in February, 1995, of Purdue University, submitted a request for the map showing presence-absence of the Oriental Fruit Moth, Grapholita molesta. The request originated in Canada. The message about Oriental Fruit Moth was given to Drs. Ferrell, Legg, Brewer at the University of Wyoming for their input. Wyoming has no record of this pest, nor has a survey been done for this pest.

d) Asian ambrosia beetle, Xylosandrus crassiusculus
In April 1995, John Kackman requested information to compile a national distribution map for the Asian ambrosia beetle. Drs. Brewer, Shaw, Legg, and Ferrell were contacted, but it is unknown if the beetle occurs within the state.

E) Weed Infestation Maps
In August 1995, Terry Bish, Department of Interior, called and requested weed infestation maps. The maps were to be used at a conference held in Denver in September. Mr. Bish was looking for a set of maps showing weed infestations 10 years ago, those currently, and projected infestations in 10 years for the whole United States. If such data existed, NAPIS would be the best location for it, therefore, Mr. Bish was given Mr. Pheasant's name as a contact person.

PPQ Program Pests

Detection traps for Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar L.) were placed in all Wyoming counties as well as in Yellowstone National Park. The survey was a cooperative enterprise of USDA/APHIS/PPQ, USDA Forest Service and State of Wyoming Department of Agriculture. Teton and Park were the only two counties monitored with both delimiting and detection traps. During 1994, four moths were collected from detection traps, those were in Albany, Park, and Teton counties and Yellowstone National Park as shown in Figure 1.

Gypsy Moth, 1995

Detection traps for Gypsy Moth (Lymantria dispar L.) have been placed in all Wyoming counties as well as in Yellowstone National Park. Delimiting surveys are being conducted around positive finds from the previous year in Albany, Park, Teton counties and Yellowstone National Park, as seen in figure 2. The survey is being conducted by the Wyoming Division of Forestry. The traps have not been removed, therefore, it is unknown at this time how many gypsy moths were found. When the data becomes available, Ms. Rogers will place the information on NAPIS.

Russian Wheat Aphid Monitoring

Big Horn, Campbell, Converse, Fremont, Goshen, Hot Springs, Johnson, Laramie, Natrona, Niobrara, Park, Platte, Sheridan, and Washakie counties were surveyed for presence of cereal leaf beetle, Oulema melanopus. Positive identifications were made in Big Horn, Hot Springs, Johnson, Park, Platte, Sheridan, and Washakie counties. In 1994, thirty-four sites were surveyed for cereal leaf beetle and in 1995 174 sites were surveyed. Of the 174 sites, USDA-APHIS made 159 stops.

Biocontrol of Cereal leaf beetle

On June 20, 1995, in Park County near the town of Clark, Tetrastichus julis was recovered in a sample of cereal leaf beetles, see Figure 3. This Hymenopteran bioagent has never been released in Wyoming. It is believed that the bioagent had been collected in Utah and released in Yellowstone County, Montana several years ago by an extension agent and presumably spread on its own. Tetrastichus julis was redistributed in seven locations within Wyoming after the positive identification. An additional bioagent, Anaphes flavipes, was released at cereal leaf beetle sites. A listing of the agents is presented in Table 3.

All data was initially entered into statewide databases and then entered onto NAPIS for the following pests: gypsy moth, cereal leaf beetle, spotted and diffuse knapweeds, leafy spurge, and Russian wheat aphid. Maps were produced that related to the distribution and biocontrol of above pests; these were subsequently distributed to USDA/APHIS and County Weed and Pest Supervisors.

It was not necessary to reprogram the Tandy computers for the 1995 field season as the information was faxed directly to Arizona that previously was stored on the Tandy computers.

A survey of purple loosestrife distribution in Wyoming has been initiated. At this time, not all counties have responded. Of the counties that have responded, six counties have purple loosestrife. The Weed & Pest District Supervisors involved estimate that there are approximately 11 acres of infestation.

A Most Destructive Weed listing has been created. Based on the listing of Most Destructive Weeds and a questionnaire, maps have been produced showing the presence or absence of the various weeds.

B. Wyoming Core Project: Biocontrol of Weeds Completion

The historical biocontrol\bioagent data has been collected and has been entered into NAPIS. For example, Ms. Rogers entered 257 records of historical data pertaining to Russian wheat aphid and alfalfa weevil. When Ms. Rogers first started inserting data there were 435 records in the statewide database pertaining to biocontrol of noxious weeds. There are now over 2,700 records installed. With the help of faculty at the University of Wyoming, USDA/APHIS, County Weed & Pest Districts, BLM, Historic Sites, National Forests, Game and Fish, and Park Services, Ms. Rogers has been able to gather most of the historical information and enter it into a statewide database.

Over 9000 records on NAPIS include township\range designations which need to be converted to latitude\longitude. However, Ms. Rogers lacked sufficient time to write a program to convert the township\range to latitude\longitude during the current fiscal year.

C. Mapping

The TIGER files for Wyoming were converted to Atlas GIS format. The converted information was hydrology and transportation, including roads and railroads.

Mr. Scott Schell, graduate student in Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences, digitized several maps relating to grasshopper distributions and shared the information with Ms. Rogers. Mr. Schell digitized major roads, interstates, county seats, mean annual potential evapotranspiration, mean annual precipitation, landform - soil map, vegetation map, general soils map, and elevation. This information was digitized into Erdas and converted into Altas GIS format.

Ms. Rogers digitized latitude, longitude, township, range, Indian Reservation, forests, parks, and small towns.

The TIGER files and the digitized maps produced by Mr. Schell and Ms. Rogers, when combined, create, an excellent base map for use by Wyoming CAPS programs. One such example was the overlay of the Gypsy Moth trap locations on the vegetation layer.

In March 1994 Ms. Rogers distributed a set of maps to each Weed & Pest Supervisory at the Supervisory Training Session. Each supervisor was requested to draw their weed infestations on these maps. A different color was used to represent each weed and a different symbol was used to represent the type of infestation. When the instructions were handed out several supervisors raised a concern. The instructions asked that a dot represent 1 to 10 plants, triangle for < 1 acre, square for 1 to 5 acres, and for infestations larger than 5 to outline the area. Several supervisors had tried to map weeds using this system in the past and it was too difficult to carry out. It was then suggested that if a section had one plant then that section would be considered infested. When the maps were received by Ms. Rogers half of the maps had been created using the mapping scheme with dot, triangles, squares, and outlines while the other half had sections filled in. The color scheme chosen also caused problems. Red looked orange to some.

Submitted weed maps were digitized into Atlas AGIS. At this time six of the twenty three counties have yet to submit weed infestation maps. The following weeds have been digitized: spotted knapweed, leafy spurge, diffuse knapweed, dalmation toadflax, Russian knapweed, musk thistle, white top, purple loosestrife, giant white top, St. johnswort, houndstongue, and yellow toadflax. Lincoln county submitted a file produced by their County CAD program. The file was then imported into Atlas AGIS without any problems.

The following counties have not submitted maps with their weed infestations: Albany, Big Horn, Laramie, Park, Teton, Uinta, and Weston.

If this project is repeated, a single mapping system should be used. Using filled sections was the easiest to map, but not the most accurate way to represent weed infestations. A separate sheet showing what color was used for each weed should be submitted, as well. Counties, like Converse and Niobrara, supplied a list of the weeds with a sample line next to each weed which made it very easy to decide if red was red or orange.

D. 1995 survey for cereal leaf beetle in Wyoming

Sixteen sites were surveyed with sweep nets in nine counties. Only one positive site was found. That site was in Platte county.

E. Grasshopper Hotspot Survey and Management

Grasshopper Survey
The grasshopper survey in southeastern Wyoming located three hot-spots (>8 grasshoppers/yd2 over <10,000 ac) and no outbreaks (>8 grasshoppers/yd2 over >10,000 ac) in 1995. This rather low number of active infestations was almost certainly due to usually cold and wet conditions in June and early July. One infestation occurred in northern Platte County in a sandhills habitat. Because of the extremely unusual habitat of this hot-spot, no management action was taken. The other two hot-spots were in Goshen County. The Canal Site was 5 mi west of South Torrington and comprised 480 ac of typical rangeland vegetation. This site reached a (spatially patchy) maximum grasshopper density of 10 grasshoppers/yd2. The 66-Mountain site was located 6 mi east of Hawk Springs and comprised 320 ac of typical rangeland vegetation within a mosaic of dryland wheat. This site reached a (spatially continuous) maximum grasshopper density of 25 grasshoppers/yd2.

Alternative Management
Both of these sites were used in testing a reduced agent/area management strategy. A full report on this project is available through the University of Wyoming. In brief, dramatic reductions in the rate and area of treatment with carbaryl had little or no effect on the degree of grasshopper control. At the Canal Site (initial densities averaged 5.4 grasshoppers/yd2) the standard treatment (16 oz/ac applied to 100% of the infestation) yielded 85% control (from 7 to 20 days after treatment), and the reduced agent/area treatments yielded mortalities of 83% (12 oz/ac applied to two-thirds of the infestation) and 79% (9 oz/ac applied to 50% of the infestation). At the 66-Mountain Site (initial densities averaged 10.6 grasshoppers/yd2) the standard treatment yielded 79% control, and the reduced agent/area treatments yielded 80 to 81% control. Economic analyses suggest that the benefit:cost ratios of the reduced agent/area treatments are substantially higher than the standard treatment. Our data demonstrate that 60% savings in economic costs and substantial reductions in environmental impacts of grasshopper control are now possible, with even greater savings almost certain to accrue with further research. Reasons for the rather remarkable results of these trials are discussed in the report, as well as suggestions for further development of this management strategy.

F. Gypsy Moth, Detection and Delimiting Survey

Coordinated by Howard Picard

The traps for 1995 have not all been gathered. As soon as they are gathered and the results of the trapping is known, maps will be produced and data placed on NAPIS.

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