Insects injurious to staple crops / by E. Dwight Sanderson.

  • Ezra Dwight Sanderson
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Insects injurious to staple crops / by E. Dwight Sanderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    always more or less injured. No effect of climate, meteorological conditions, or natural enemies could have brought about such a contrast of results. The whole secret was in the management of the soil and the seeding.” Some Wheat-maggots. Very similar in its mode of injuring the wheat-stalk to the Hessian Fly is the Wheat Stern-maggot {Meromijza americana Fitch). The adult flies were first described by Dr. Fitch in 1856, though the work of the maggots had probably been noticed as early as 1821 by James Worth of Bucks County, Pa., and by the Michigan Farmer in Michigan about 1845. Extending from Dakota and Manitoba to Texas, the range of this insect practically covers all the eastern United States and southern Canada. Unlike the Hessian Fly it feeds and breeds upon wild grasses and is thus much more difficult to control. Prof. A. J. Cook found the larvfe in both barley and oats in Michigan, Prof. Webster reared an adult from Blue Grass {Foa gratensis), and Dr. Jas. Fletcher records it as breed- ing in Agropyrum^ Deschampsis, Elynius, Poa, and Setaria viridis in Canada. Life-history.—Like the Hessian Fly the adult flies lay their eggs on fall wheat in September and October, and the young maggots when hatched work their way down into the stem, either cutting it off or causing it to discolor or die. The eggs are about one-fortieth of an inch long and of a glistening white color. The larvEe are a light greenish color, about one-fourth of an inch long, tapering towards the terminal end while subcylindrical posteriorly, being quite elongate. The pupai are the same color as the