J U L Y / A U G U S T 2 0 1 7 POTATO GROWER 13 n North Dakota and Minnesota temperature. University of Minnesota - Northwest Research and Outreach Center Dr. Ian MacRae, UMN Dr. Ian MacRae, Josie Dillon and the rest of the Entomology crew at the University of Minnesota’s Northwest Research & Outreach Center in Crookston, Minnesota have a busy field season planned. We’ll again be moni- toring the Aphid Alert trapping net- work, mapping the distribution and densities of aphid vectors of PVY and other potato virus diseases in Minnesota and North Dakota. We have 20 loca- tions planned for 2017, with grower cooperators monitoring the traps and sending in the weekly samples. We’ll be publishing the PVY Risk Index again this year to provide some insight into the actual potential risk the species captured presents at each location. The results will be published in our two blogs (aphi- dalert.umn.edu and aphidalert. blogspot.com) and summarized weekly in NPPGA’s Potato Bytes, NDSU’s Potato Extension website (www.ag.ndsu.edu/ potatoextension), the AgDakota List- Serve, Minnesota Crop E-News, and on my Twitter page (@MNSpugBug). As part of our aphid management research, we’ll also be refining some techniques utilizing oils, vine-killing and a couple of other tactics. We have several other projects, includ- ing examining foliar applications to control Colorado potato beetle (CPB). We’ll also be examining CPB popula- tions from Minnesota and North Dakota to determine levels of resistance to sev- eral insecticides, including neonicoti- noids. If you have some beetle prob- lems, please let us know so we can swing by and pick up several hundred of the offended bugs. We also are collaborating with Dr. Susie Thompson at NDSU on a continuing remote sensing effort. Funded by State Specialty Crop Block grants, we’re assessing the potential of remotely sens- ing PVY infected plants. This would be of great benefit managing PVY and in breeding for PVY resistance, gave us a great opportunity to collaborate on the research efforts. So far we’ve been using ground-based equipment to identify wavelengths of reflected light that is associated with PVY infection. We have had some luck with this over the past two years, but there are some potential issues that still need to be ironed out before this one is ready to leave the ground! So if you see some of our crew out in the Grand Forks plots buzzing the canopy with drones, it’s not a new weed control tactic. We’ll have some insecticide trials on the NWROC campus in Crookston again