Real-Life Communication
You are an agricultural engineer who specializes in potato crop
insects. Because you are such a well-known and respected scientist, you have
been invited to join a team of researchers in Nebraska to study the adult
corn rootworm.
"Communication skills are very important for agricultural
engineers because most projects are now done in team settings and in order
to be effective, agricultural engineers must be able to express their ideas
in written form," says Loren Bode, an agricultural engineer.
Oh boy!
You don't know much about Nebraska, or corn for that matter. You hit
the books to research as much as you can about the rootworm before you arrive
to greet your colleagues.
"Engineers must have good reading skills,
as they must spend considerable time in researching the problem they are working
on," says Bode.
Read the excerpt below and answer the following questions
in order to impress others with your knowledge of corn rootworms:
Managing
Corn Rootworm Adults:
The western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera
virgifera Le Conte, and the northern corn rootworm, D.barberi Smith and Lawrence,
annually cost corn producers millions of dollars.
Costs include the
purchase and application of insecticides and yield losses due to root feeding
by larvae -- like plant removal, negative impact on corn plant physiology,
and harvest losses due to lodged corn.
In Nebraska, adult corn rootworm
control programs have been used to manage rootworm populations in continuous
corn since the 1960s. The goal of adult spray programs is to suppress corn
rootworm beetle populations and reduce egg-laying larvae so that larval populations
the following season will not cause economic loss.
Most of the insecticides
used for beetle control are aerially applied in Nebraska, with some applications
spread through sprinkler irrigation systems, called chemigation. Most of the
insecticide formulations currently used are "contact kill" products, which
means beetles are killed if they are directly hit by spray droplets or by
walking on sprayed surfaces.
(Excerpt from Managing Corn Rootworm Adults
by Robert J. Wright and Lance Meinke. Permission for use granted by Jim Kalisch
of UNL)
- Why does the corn rootworm cost corn producers millions of dollars per
year?
- What is the goal of adult spray programs?
- What is chemigation?
- What does the term "contact kill" mean?