More sawfly damage...

As indicated in a previous post, 2012 has been a boom year for wheat stem sawfly damage. I decided to put together a short video. I have had a few phone calls to the office inquiring about lodged wheat and some word-of-mouth chatter that would indicate that some wheat producers do not recognize wheat stem sawfly damage. It has been a windy year for a windy part of the country, so apparently a number of producers, understandably, are blaming their lodged wheat on the wind. Some are blaming the lodged wheat on the variety and suggesting that the variety that they planted had poor straw strength (or poorer than expected). This is only part of the story. Because the wheat stem sawfly girdles wheat tillers near the base late in the growing season, it often takes a bit of wind to knock the wheat down. When the wheat finally does fall, it often does so in dramatic fashion. The video is a bit of a crude "Duke Dukem" style view of sawfly damage, but I think it gets the point across.