 Well, not much has changed in the past few days. There aren't nearly
as many insects flying around as there were during blooming and with the
seeds developing birds will probably start causing problems.
 This head is slightly larger than 6 inches which makes it just about the
right size. It appears to be okay, but I don't see many developing
seeds in the center. Let's look at the back.
 This plant and surrounding plants are still in the R7 stage. The
backside of the head is still green, but turning yellow.
 It's not very difficult to walk through the field and see this type of
head moth damage on the back of the heads. We'll probably continue to
see this type of damage for the next couple weeks. Don't get me wrong,
not every head has these symptoms but you can see them scattered around the
field.
 Well, I said there weren't as many insects in our field, but we still
have some hanging around causing minor damage. These caterpillars are
feeding on the leaves near the field's edge. We saw the
same damage earlier in the summer by the same species. These are more
painted lady caterpillars (not the same ones we saw before) chewing on the
leaves.
 Not all sunflower heads have a nice, uniform shape. Sometimes they have
been damaged by insects, diseases, or even hail, which results in misshaped
heads . It's difficult to say what exactly happened to cause this type
of damage.
 This is another example of something going wrong with the plant, which
results in a misshaped plant. Notice the leaves are compressed into a small
area under the misshaped head.
|
Well, not much has changed in the past few days. There aren't nearly
as many insects flying around as there were during blooming and with the
seeds developing birds will probably start causing problems.
