UMN Extension Field Crop IPM Podcasts

Welcome to the University of Minnesota Extension's IPM podcast for field crops, where we discuss all methods of pest control used for growers in Minnesota and the surrounding region. I'm your host, doctor Anthony Hanson, regional extension educator in field crops IPM. For today's episode, we have doctor Ken Ossley, who's actually retiring in just a few days from when we recorded this episode. So, Ken, congratulations on your retirement. Is there anything you're especially looking forward to when you retire?

Well, it's it's hard to believe that it's actually been thirty eight years since I was going through an interview for the position and coming back to the hotel afterwards and watching the Winter Olympics. And so all of a sudden, here we are in the same time of year, being able to catch some Winter Olympics coming up. And so that kind of brought back some memories. What I'd really like to focus on as we go through here is just relate what it was like starting as a new entomologist, some of the topics that emerged through my career and kind of where we are at right now and what kind of changes look like they're emerging on the horizon that could affect integrated pest management.

So for new listeners, if you haven't heard of doctor Ostley yet, he is our corn entomologist at the University of Minnesota and also works on the extension side of things too. So he kinda has a dual role a little bit. So, Ken, I think we'll start off. Like you mentioned, basically before you started at the university, what were you doing beforehand in terms of growing up on a farm or college beforehand?

Well, what's interesting to me is that entomologists come into the field from all sorts of different directions. And I'm one that came in as a farm boy that enjoyed being outdoors. I was active in four H conservation projects. And ironically, never collected a single insect when I was in four H, even though the conservation project has an etymology component that you can work on. But I was very interested in plants And I caught some glimpses as time went on of how insects impacted things.

Corn bore was very noticeable, especially in a bad year when my father would send us out to glean dropped years from corn bore tunneling in the gear shank. And then I could remember vividly hearing over the radio, the reports of army worms crossing Highway 7 in between Montevideo and Clara City, and causing enough in their mass movement that they actually brought out snow plows and sanding trucks so that they can keep the highway opening open. But as I went to Luther College for my bachelor's degree, I was very interested in the plant dynamics. And in particular, had a couple of insects, couple of ecologists, particularly looking at some stuff in prairies. And that was fascinating to me, one of them was a seed predator, an insect that got into seed pods of a prairie legume and really wreaked havoc on the seed production of that plant.

Then when I went to Utah State to work my master's degree, I worked actually on a insect problem in reseeded ranges called the black grass bug. And while I was there, I focused again, mainly on the plant side, but when it came time to think about doing a PhD, I decided to return more to my roots and went to Iowa State University where I worked on a PhD in entomology, so I could get the insect side of the interaction that I was finding fascinating. So I graduated there in 1984, and that's where I came up here as my first position and have been here ever since.

So how did that go for you first starting out at the University of Minnesota? Just in terms of, you know, starting out as professor, especially starting off research, seeing a few folks who've been hired over the years just since I've been around, it's a bit of a first year process there getting everything up and going, isn't it?

Well, it's definitely a challenge, even more so because the position I had was created from two other positions. And so I had responsibilities for corn insects and soybean insects with an extension and research split. At the university, every position has a teaching component and a research components. And for me, the teaching was with farmers and egg professionals. And I found that a very rewarding blend.

But ironically, because it was a new position when I started, I literally had no equipment to work with. And it was in the middle of the high interest rate economic crash of the early 1980s. And so the university didn't have a lot of money to throw at new professors. So quite literally, I think it was about two years after I started that the department head came to be and actually said, well, we're in a better position now, is there something you can think of that you might need for research? And that's when I started on building equipment that I could use for on farm research.

So we got ahold of a planter that was being retired and modified it so we could do our insect work. And ironically, it's the same planter body that we drawbar, etcetera, that we use today. But lots of components have actually changed over the years.

Yeah. That's one thing I've noticed at the university is a lot like us that do farming too. We make use of our equipment for quite a few years. We're not very quick to let go of it, it seems like. So overall, what do you think have been the biggest changes for you over the years that you've seen, especially in terms of, you know, what were you dealing with when you first started your position here, especially pests, but then also what was going on with Extension at the time?

Well, because of the fiscal crisis, Extension was in a downsizing mode. And ironically, the first Dean was only there when I started was only there a couple of years and hired specifically to downsize extension. But at that time, the extension system was a very good one and had strong county presence. There was good linkage between experiment stations, extension, and the university faculty. And so it was a very good system to begin to work with, much different than what we see out there today.

And I'm sure Anthony, you can comment on what the changes were, but over the years, it's like loss of the county position erodes some of the vocal base and the political support. And then you lose some of that contact with what's going on, because I can only react to things that are brought to my attention or that I happen to see. Perfect example was a spider mite crisis in 1988, when the first calls came out of ag professionals out in the field and county extension educators that tipped me off to what was going on. And so we were able to react quite timely because of that. The other dimension that I found very rewarding with this position is the extension and research blend.

So obviously growers and people that advise them are wrestling with management decisions all the time. And I found out through the years that they actually asked the hard questions, because they're the ones right on the edge of what we know. And they're asking questions that help point me in a direction of what do we need to know. And that allows me to design research and work on farm, I would say probably 75, 70 to 75% of my research has been in farm situations with actual insect problems in the field, as opposed to being on the experiment stations. And that's maybe one of the differences with entomology is that in order to really look at all these different insect problems, we actually need to be out there with what the growers are facing.

Rewarding to get that research and then go back in winter meetings and summer tours and field days and share what we've found out.

Yeah, that's definitely one of the challenges for us entomologists that work out in the field is finding where you have actual issues because, obviously, the research and outreach centers have a lot of resources, but it's not always a guarantee we'll actually find what's causing the issues out in just that one set of fields out there.

Yeah. You know what? Something that's on the tip of the iceberg may only be occurring in 1% or less of the fields, and the odds of it occurring on an experiment station are very slim. So if we want that contemporaries challenging issues, we almost have to be on farm.

So in terms of insects you worked with, obviously European corn borer was the big one when you started, that's changed over time. Same question for corn rootworm too. How has that been morphing over the years?

When you're studying insect problems, there's actually never a dull year, because something is always changing. And that interplay between insects, We've got immigrants, we've got new pests arriving, we've got variable weather effects on the whole cropping system as well as the insect. And then we've got the crop, how weather is affecting that, new technology, new tools out there like Transgenics, for example. So things are really dynamic. And when you look at European corn borer, when I started, that was literally the focus of what I was to be doing when I first started, because there'd been a huge outbreak in 1983 that really challenged how we managed corn borer and caused tremendous losses out there.

There was some confusion because a new extension publication had come out and it turned out that it was targeted at a biotype which occurred in Southern Minnesota, but we had a different biotype and a mix of the two biotypes in the rest of the state. So things they tried to implement that new research and it just failed. So there was tremendous demand to figure out what was going on. And along the way we gathered, we looked at the biology of the insect, we looked at the control tactics, we looked at scouting, we looked at decision making, a lot of that on farm research and how well the different insecticides worked, for example, and what kind of yield losses we saw in the field, what kind of harvesting issues. And so we were able to put it all together in fairly good package and felt like we were in a good place when a major outbreak hit in 1996.

And ironically, that outbreak was the worst we had ever seen. And it was one year before BT corn came in. And we knew that technology was going to be very successful. And indeed, it revolutionized things so that at the moment, corn borer is a relatively non problem. So we have a pest going from a key pest to obscurity almost out there.

And unfortunately, it spoiled us because when BT technology came along for corn rootworms, it was tempting to think we'd see the same development. But ironically, corn rootworms have a long history of developing resistance to everything we throw at it. So back in the 1960s, it was the chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides, Aldrin and Dieldrin that it developed resistance to. Then the primary tactic we use crop rotation fell next in Minnesota with extended diapause of Northern corn rootworms, and a soybean variant of Western corn rootworm in the rest of The US. And then we have, as the extended diapause problem is blooming across Minnesota, we have the arrival of the transgenic corn.

One of the interesting twists to all of this has been this idea that BT corn for rootworm was going to do the same thing as BT corn for Lepse did European corn borer. And ironically, within seven years, we had resistance by Western corn rootworm to BT. So here you went from a very stable situation where corn rootworms were only a problem in continuous corn, to all of a sudden seeing it be a problem in rotated corn as well. And then transgenic technology comes in and things are very well controlled. And then all of a sudden resistance shows up.

And at this point, we have resistance, no one to every single BT trait we've got out there. And the pyramids are even struggling in many fields to maintain adequate control. So we've got some new technology coming in. The question is, is it going to be enough? And more appropriately, how do we diagnose problems so we can be on the lead edge of it and actually take control of it rather than being in a reactive mode all the time.

Kind of two glaringly different things. And along the way, because I had soybean responsibility, we had periodic outbreaks of pests like spider mites in 1988, grasshoppers in 1989, And then soybean aphid came in in 2000 and really changed the face of soybean entomology. Fortunately, it became too much for one position and Bob Cook was hired to focus on the soybean aspects. Believe it or not, that's where the major action has been shifting with resistance of soybean aphid to insecticides, and then loss of some products because of environmental human safety concerns. And these new invasive insects as well.

So things are always changing out there. That's, as I mentioned earlier, one of the things I really like about being in a crop entomologist.

Yeah. That's definitely something being an entomologist is we never have a year, even like last year, where a lot of our pests were reduced because of the drought. It always seems like there's something that's gonna pop up one way or another.

Yeah. And the year after a significant drought, that's when we start looking for another set of insect problems. I mentioned the grasshoppers in 1989, if we string together a few drought years, that's when you can see more spider mit activity in general, you can see more grasshoppers. And so it'll be interesting even on soybeans where we have a new pest coming in as well. I know Bruce Potter's been focusing on one in particular.

Yeah. You're talking about soybean gall midge. I think we probably have to have an episode on that pretty soon. But like you said, Bruce Potter's doing a lot on that in Southwestern Minnesota. Yeah.

We're, keeping an eye on that one to see if that's going to be our new soybean aphid potentially. It's still new to science even this insect, so it's a bit of work that's gonna have to go into that one.

Well, the irony over time is that the more your experience base grows, the more you're able to recognize situations that are reoccurring, that maybe you had experience with earlier in your career and then ten, twenty, or even thirty years later, reoccur. And in a sense, one of the things I know Bruce Potter has been concerned about is kind of loss of some of that institutional knowledge base. So he was asking me now, if we have a corn rootworm issues blow up this summer, am I still going to be around to access? And the answer is yes, I'm going to have what's called professor emeritus status. And that literally means you can engage in whatever you'd like to in terms of life in the department, you can do grants, you can have grad students, you can do research.

So, you know, I'm not sure at this point where things are going to end up. But the thing that I do like so far in the short run is that I know I can say no to stuff and take on things that I would find rewarding. And some of those things historically have been difficult to do research on with the crush of the other responsibilities in the position.

So, Ken, I'll I'll be curious what your take is on this one, but I've always considered basically emeritus professors. For folks who haven't heard the term before, that's essentially someone who has retired. But the ones I've seen in our department or others, they oftentimes still come in every single day. They're almost like what you'd call a retired farmer. They never truly quit, it seems like.

I

think they have got a good analogy there. Yeah. When I see farm families at work, you know, even if dad or mom's retired, they're just as likely to be an attractor or helping with support the family for a younger farmer. So yeah, there's a lot to be done. But on the other hand, there's always projects that got deferred in the summer that I'm gonna have to address.

I've got a deck to put new decking on. So I suspect that'll take some time. I might even get a garden that actually is tended in June and July instead of neglected.

So Ken, what would you say people should be keeping an eye on in corn entomology going forward, both in terms of positive things to think about, great research that might be coming down the pipeline for topics or red flags to keep an eye on too?

Well, general, the last few years has been kind of consumed with either a new pest, like we mentioned the soybean gall midge in corn, you've got the movement of stink bugs in general from the South working their way farther North. And one example is brown marmorated stink bug. So we're wondering how that will play out. We've got a variety of caterpillar species that have become resistant to Bt's, particularly in the Southern United States. And these are insects that don't overwinter here.

So we'll be looking to see, does a warming climate mean that they're gonna over winter farther north, and we're gonna see them up here sooner in the summer, so they'll be here for a longer period of time, potentially causing problems. You know, we still benefit from the fact that we're on the north end of a lot of these migration pathways for insects, and we've got a harsher winter climate here. And that has always been a benefit for growers in Minnesota. But if things warm up a little bit or shift a bit, and we can see some insects over winter here better, or arrive sooner, or have more time during the summer to build the numbers, particularly those insects that have multiple generations, we can start to see things shift in terms of how we have to manage some of these insects. So there'll be those changes.

I mentioned the technology changes before. The irony there is that companies are vertically integrating. So they're controlling all options from seed treatments to insecticides, to transgenics, even information nowadays. And so one of the challenges we've always had is that it's too dang expensive to get good information on insects and too difficult. And so part of the whole revolution that I see in the future is getting a better handle on what's happening in fields so we can make more targeted, better timed interventions to manage insects.

And so be interesting to see how technology plays into that and remote sensing and all robots and all those drones and all those kinds of aspects.

Your comments on the industry are kind of a good point to think about for extension too. A lot of folks maybe don't know that we're kind of a bit of an intermediary. We're kind of that independent aspect, for the growers specifically. So do you wanna describe a little bit about how we interact with industry in extension specifically and kinda what roles that, you know, typically a researcher or extension professor would have?

Well, in the Morrill Land Grant Act in 1860 and then followed by the Smith Weaver axe later that's set up extension more specifically, put land grant universities in a pivotal position to help with technology change. And along with that is education to growers and the ag advisors that give them recommendations on how to use that technology and what's its role going to be compared to existing control methods and how you integrate it into decision making. And so at various times we find ourselves, in a complimentary role with companies at other times, adversarial role, and we see a different place and a different set of economics in a situation than what the companies would like to sell the growers on. And so there's always this kind of tension. And it's continuing nowadays into the social media side, where companies are setting up their own social media on expertise access, expertise databases for growers.

And so there's going to have to be a little bit of innovation, I think on extension side into how extension fits in this newer, more vertically organized, you know, in the situations that the company may address on their own and how we get objective independent information to growers that isn't slanted in terms of sales. And prime example we've seen with the BT technology is this tension between the fact that there's tremendous investments by the company in the BT technology. They want to see it get labeled as fast as possible so that they can get a return on their investment and are really gun shy about information that might challenge the widespread use of that technology, whether we're talking about managing or staving off the development of resistance, for example, and then, or even on the other side, when resistance is occurring, you get this tension between if they acknowledge the resistance, then it starts to potentially impact sales. And yet they've got clients that are demanding, you know, better information about what's going on. So there's a there's a lot of potential dynamic change going on in this whole arena.

So, Ken, as you look back over the years, is there any story or set of stories that really stand out to you that you remember when you look back that really impacted you in the research you're doing or on the extension side of things?

Well, one of the ones that I mentioned when I was in the ag professional research updates this January was the fact that on my very first summer, I'm in a plot tour, and, you know, you're ground truthing the knowledge that you've been given that other entomologists have collected. And I was talking about soil and sex and one grower asked about white grubs and I proceeded to relay everything I knew about the grass orientation, the pasture situations with white grubs. He listens very patiently and then as soon as I'm done with my answer, he goes, Nope, that's not it. So, you know, I don't know quite what to say, because I don't have anything else to draw on except listen to him. And he proceeded to describe, you know, later became known to me as a different species that acted totally different and loved bare soil, forget the grasses, as a place to lay eggs, and sandy soils and persistent problems.

So it was an early opening into the fact that these are people that are dealing with real issues out in the environment, listen to their questions because they're telling you what they need to know. So that was very good for me as a beginning entomologist. I was lucky that I had seen some situations in grad school with insect pests, like the spider mite outbreaks, that I could recognize very quickly, even though I was young in my career, and advocate with Minnesota Department of Ag on behalf of growers to get a section 18 label because literally insecticides stocks were being depleted across the Midwest and in the face of this outbreak. And along with that, to realize that there are partners out there that really would like you to see their situation, love it when you have a chance to do some research on farm, offer their farms and cooperate. And so over the years, I would say, I have to give a lot of credit to the ag professionals, crop consultants, extension educators, farm managers, ag chem dealers, seed dealers, for example, that bring things to our attention and help with the research.

And then having groups like the corn and soybean growers fund research. That's been incredibly valuable because oftentimes nationwide funding sources and grants don't have a Minnesota based focus for what they're judging grants on. And so having some funding available locally that emphasizes our needs has been very crucial. And so I couldn't have gotten done what I've gotten done without their support.

Well, Ken, thank you for all the work you've done over these years too. I know, especially when I was in grad school too, you were there in the department doing a lot over that time, and I've heard stories of all the other work you've done in the too. So it's great to see all the work that you've had put together and, kinda see that accumulate over time. So, hopefully, you get to enjoy your retirement quite a bit when that comes up here.

Yeah. And, hopefully, I can keep my fingers involved in a little bit of enemology along the way.

Thank you, Ken.

Well, thanks, Anthony.

Thanks again, everyone. I'm your host, Anthony Hanson, extension educator and integrated pest management. You've been listening to the University of Minnesota Extension's IPM podcast for field crops. We'll be having more episodes before the growing season starts up, so stay tuned and subscribe to us on your podcast for more updates. Thank you.