Abstract
Gyllenhal). Insecticide resistance development coupled with regulatory changes in pesticide use has resulted in renewed interest by producers in non-chemical control methods such as cultural control. One such cultural control method is early harvest, which consists of producers timing their harvests early in the season to decrease alfalfa weevil damage. This method is thought to be effective by exposing weevil larvae to adverse conditions before significant damage occurs. Still, early harvest can be difficult to employ because recommendations are often vague. To better understand how early harvest impacts both alfalfa weevils and their natural enemies and how producers are using this method across the Intermountain Western United States, we conducted a study in alfalfa production fields in Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming over three growing seasons. We determined that the timing of the initial alfalfa harvest spanned more than 1 month across fields, and alfalfa plant stage at harvest ranged from late vegetative to early bloom. Harvest was more impactful on reducing alfalfa weevil densities the earlier it was implemented. Removing windrows in a timely manner is likely useful to further decrease alfalfa weevil densities. Harvest timing was not associated with parasitism rates of alfalfa weevil, but higher parasitism rates were associated with lower post-harvest alfalfa weevil densities. This work has increased our understanding of early harvest in an on-farm setting and to improve recommendations for producers across the Intermountain Western United States.
Abstract from the paper’s OpenAlex record; open copy licensed cc-by. Read at the source ↗
The text the model read, with the source record’s inline markup (italics, sub- and superscripts) rendered and its character entities decoded; quote offsets refer to the raw text.
Claims 6
Claim · model-written summary
Initial alfalfa harvest dates spanned more than one month across fields.
- Taxon
- alfalfa
Medicago sativae0 - Outcome
- timing of the initial alfalfa harveste0
- Value
- more than 1 monthe0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“the timing of the initial alfalfa harvest spanned more than 1 month across fields”
Claim · model-written summary
Alfalfa stage at harvest ranged from late vegetative to early bloom.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Organ / stage
- late vegetative to early bloome0
- Outcome
- plant stage at harveste0
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“alfalfa plant stage at harvest ranged from late vegetative to early bloom”
Claim · model-written summary
Earlier harvest produced greater reductions in alfalfa weevil density.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Treatment
- Harveste0
- Interactor
- alfalfa weevil
Hypera posticae0 - Outcome
- alfalfa weevil densitiese0
- Direction
- reducinge0
Not reportedInteractor role
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Harvest was more impactful on reducing alfalfa weevil densities the earlier it was implemented.”
Claim · model-written summary
Timely windrow removal was judged likely to further decrease alfalfa weevil densities.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Interactor
- alfalfa weevilHypera posticae0
- Outcome
- Removing windrows in a timely mannere0
Not reportedInteractor role
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Removing windrows in a timely manner is likely useful to further decrease alfalfa weevil densities.”
Claim · model-written summary
Harvest timing was not associated with alfalfa weevil parasitism rates.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Treatment
- Harvest timinge0
- Interactor
- alfalfa weevilHypera posticae0
- Outcome
- parasitism rates of alfalfa weevile0
Not reportedInteractor roleDirection
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“Harvest timing was not associated with parasitism rates of alfalfa weevil”
Claim · model-written summary
Higher parasitism rates were associated with lower postharvest alfalfa weevil densities.
- Taxon
- alfalfaMedicago sativae0
- Interactor
- alfalfa weevilHypera posticae0
- Outcome
- post-harvest alfalfa weevil densitiese0
- Direction
- lowere0
- Qualifier
- higher parasitism ratese0
Not reportedInteractor role
Organisms pictured · Representative pictures of the matched species, not figures from the paper.
Verbatim
e0“higher parasitism rates were associated with lower post-harvest alfalfa weevil densities”