Winter 2019 ALM collection

Feb 05, 2019

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Winter 2019 ALM collection 
Today we visited a farm in with reported ALM damage to collect overwintering pupae from leeks left behind from the previous growing season. It was quite the success and we were able to collect a good number of insects which we will use to begin our investigation of visual preferences. 
 
You can see the ALM pupae along the base of the leek. Over the next week, we will go through the harvested plants, collect the pupae, and attempt to rear them out in the lab. 
 
It was messy work gathering all the leeks today, but it already appears worth the effort, as we should get a good yeild of flies and we were happy to help the grower reduce pest pressure for next year!
 
In addition to collecting a ton of flies, we also made some new friends, including this ox and a cat named Garrett. :)
 
Lindsy and Riley toiling in the fields. 
 
Lindsy was pretty happy that we found the ALM pupae right away. This field was loaded.

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About This Project

Evaluating visual preferences of allium leafminer to improve monitoring technology

Cornell University

Allium leafminer (ALM) is an invasive fly that attacks Allium plants (onion, leek, chives, garlic) in the northeastern U.S, that can cause 100% crop loss. Our research goal is to identify potential monitoring tools for early ALM detection for better management of this pest. We will do this by investigating, how ALM responds to visual stimuli in the lab and how visual traps perform in the field. We hypothesize that ALM will respond most to patterned yellow traps installed above the canopy.