Iowa-Grown Alfalfa Seed

Alfalfa seed can be produced in Iowa. We have found that out here at the Iowa Station in experiments this past summer and in cooperative tests with a few Iowa farmers

The Europeaan Corn Borer

A little less than a decade ago, 1917, the European corn borer was discovered near Boston. Up to that time the corn growers of the United States and Canada had not suffered very extensive and regular losses from insect pests. True, now and then the corn earworm, white grubs, cutworms, wireworms and a few other insects did serious damage to the corn crop, but such outbreaks were sporadic, more or less local, never widespread and they did not repeat themselves year after year. · The spread of the corn borer since its appearance has been rapid. Climatic conditions, coupled with the lack of natural enemies, have been very favorable for its multiplication and dissemination in America. The annual increase and spread of the insect have been so great and certain that the corn crop of America is now threatened with tremendous losses. This danger is not very far removed from Iowa, for in the Lake Erie region during the past summer (1925) the borer advanced westward to within 35 miles of the Ohio-Indiana state line

Updated Spitzer Emission Spectroscopy of Bright Transiting Hot Jupiter HD189733b

We analyze all existing secondary eclipse time series spectroscopy of hot Jupiter HD189733b acquired with the now defunct Spitzer/IRS instrument. We describe the novel approaches we develop to remove the systematic effects and extract accurate secondary eclipse depths as a function of wavelength in order to construct the emission spectrum of the exoplanet. We compare our results to a previous study by Grillmair et al. that did not examine all data sets available to us. We are able to confirm the detection of a water feature near 6{\mu}m claimed by Grillmair et al. We compare the planetary emission spectrum to three model families -- based on isothermal atmosphere, gray atmosphere, and two realizations of the complex radiative transfer model by Burrows et al., adopted in Grillmair et al.'s study. While we are able to reject the simple isothermal and gray models based on the data at the 97% level just from the IRS data, these rejections hinge on eclipses measured within relatively narrow wavelength range, between 5.5 and 7{\mu}m. This underscores the need for observational studies with broad wavelength coverage and high spectral resolution, in order to obtain robust information on exoplanet atmospheres.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures and 3 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

The Control of Armyworms and Cutworms

The armyworm and several species of cutworms are always present in the gardens and fields of Iowa. Cutworms cause great annoyance here and there in the spring by cutting off transplanted and other young plants in vegetable and flower gardens. Young corn plants also are particularly susceptible to their attack. The armyworm Is most frequently found In low-lying grassland and generally feeds singly, as do cutworms. The Injury by armyworms and cutworms In fields or pastures of timothy, bluegrass and of certain cereal crops, Is not so noticeable and is usually entirely overlooked by the grower

Grasshoppers in Iowa in 1936

Iowa and other mid-western states suffered tremendous grasshopper losses in 1936. Although the heaviest damage occurred in the western and southern counties, the infestation extended across the southern half of the state and up along the Mississippi River into a number of northeastern counties. In fact, more or less damage occurred in all save about 25 counties located in the northcentral part of the state. Over 21,000 farmers broadcast 200 or more pounds of poison bait on their respective farms, and a total of 4,463 tons of dry bait materials were wet and mixed at 52 county mixing stations

A New Species of Plea (Hemiptera-Notonectidae)

Author Institution: Department of Forest Entomology, New York State College of Forestr