Cindy Warner

@ablubaugh84 @hortonseed @mjaeger6 The widespread mosaic virus that is showing up across Kansas is something we have been getting a lot of calls on lately. A couple things, for the most part these are spring infections. Look up kernel red streak in corn. We have been watching this since 2021. Wheat curl mite populations can harbor in corn and milo. Most of the time this is not a problem but as we push planting dates back on row crops which still has the plant holding green tissue into wheat drilling time frames we are providing more and more green bridges for the mites to survive year round. The mites don’t really gain in population in the row crops thus the lighter more sporadic spring infections instead of the traditional massive population coming out of a straight hellish untouched volunteer wheat situation that wipes you out with full blown wheat streak. We are seeing more triticum, high plains and some wheat streak. Leaving volunteer wheat is still a large part of all of this. Ex; A guy leaves his volunteer say until mid August and it get rank and infected and a mite population starts going, he then terminates still a month before planting which should be fine but there is corn all around it and that population moves into the corn and lives until late September, and the corn starts to die off but there is new wheat emerging for a reduced mite population to move into. What we are starting to look at is the wheat curl mite changing to survive better in the row crops and other grass species that are in ditches. We had a very similar outbreak last year that we documented very well that @ablubaugh84 and @hortonseed will be having a customer meeting to talk about infection levels and how different varieties handle what has now been two years in a row out here.