Boot areas in commercial grain elevators and feed mills contribute to commingling of insects with grain that moves through the elevator leg. A partial budget and stochastic dominance model were developed to improve pest management decision-making and risk analysis assessment from commingling effects of insect activity in the boot area. Modified pilot-scale bucket elevator legs, containing residual wheat or corn, were infested with varying insect pest densities prior to clean grain transfers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEconomic evaluations of integrated pest management strategies are becoming increasingly important as restrictions on conventional insecticides continue to become more stringent and chemical control costs rise. Aerosol treatments with insect growth regulators alone and in combination with conventional contact insecticides may be a feasible alternative to expensive and highly toxic fumigants such as methyl bromide for control of the Indianmeal moth (Plodia interpunctella (Hübner)). Average calculated mortality of Indianmeal moth eggs exposed to surface applied methoprene, aerosol methoprene alone and in combination with esfenvalerate and synergized pyrethrins is 55.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe influence of sanitation on responses of life stages of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), was investigated in a pilot flour mill subjected to three, 24-h heat treatments by using forced-air gas heaters fueled by propane. Two sanitation levels, dusting of wheat flour and 2-cm-deep flour, were created in 25 plastic bioassay boxes, each holding eggs, young larvae, old larvae, pupae, and adults of T. castaneum plus two temperature sensors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe commitment to consumer food safety, global trade, and proposed new regulations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine has led to increased adoption of hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) by the U.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe primary objectives of this research were to determine SWAT model predicted reductions in four water quality indicators (sediment yield, surface runoff, nitrate nitrogen (NO(3)-N) in surface runoff, and edge-of-field erosion) associated with producing switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) on cropland in the Delaware basin in northeast Kansas, and evaluate switchgrass break-even prices. The magnitude of potential switchgrass water quality payments based on using switchgrass as an alternative energy source was also estimated. SWAT model simulations showed that between 527,000 and 1.
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