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Show ALFALFA WEEVIL IN WEBER OOUNTY The alfalfa weevil continues to spread and is now making its way into the lucerne fields of Weber county. Government experts are trying to check the ravages of the pest, but so far without great success. The experts have traced the source of the invasion to Salt Lake City. The pest was first reported on the outskirts of that city in the spring of 1904. At that time it had seemingly injured several acres of alfalfa. The following spring its work was observed ob-served several miles away. The particular locality where the pest was first observed is on the eastern border of Salt Lake, Although not far distant from nurseries, it is not in close proximity to any railway; it is, on the other hand, among the habitations of the more humble class of people, such as have come from foreign countries. The correct inference, therefore, would scorn to be that it was introduced in-troduced with nursery stock or in the household effects of immigrants. immi-grants. The pest had gained a foothold, doubtless, years earlier, but had increased from perhaps a single pair and was too few in numbers to attract attention up to the time when it had become destructive over several acres and when it had probably spread in limited numbers far beyond. In the immediate vicinity of this seriously ser-iously infested field, and indeed throughout the country about Salt Lake, alfalfa long ago escaped from cultivation and now grows as a weed generally on vacant Jots and other uncultivated areas like roadsides and railroad rights of wayso that it would now be impossible im-possible to delemiue, even approximately, the exact time and location loca-tion of the original lauding of the first individuals in Utah. As a matter of fact the insect might easily have been brought into the country again and again and have perished because the locality in which it ended its voyage was destitute of growing alfalfa. From the single infested alfalfa field near Salt Lake, the only one known up to the year 1904, the pest evidently became somewhat widely diffused and by the following year was found several miles distant to the southeast. It was not, however, until 1907 that it was brought to the attention of the Utah Experiment Station and not until 1908 that attention was called to the matter in print by Prof. E. G. Titus, entomologist of the Agricultural College and Experiment Experi-ment Station, although by the fall- of 1907 it had spread over all of the alfalfa-growing section lying immediately east of Salt Lake and Murray. By July 1, 1910, the infested area covered the greater part of Salt Lake and contiguous portions of adjoining comities, aggregating aggre-gating an area approximately 60 by 70 miles ip extent. Up to September, 1911, the insect had extended -its area of diffusion dif-fusion directly northward as far as Tremonton, east to Evanston, ciu.ni,, uuu j niau. .vu., uuu uuiuiciisi lu Vjuivevuie, o. jn.au-dolph jn.au-dolph and Laketown. Utah, and Fish Haven. Idaho. So far the alfalfa fields of Weber county have escaped serious damage, but if the weevil finally gets established in this district as it is throughout Salt Lake county, the destruction will be almost total to the alfalfa crop. The government is importing enemies of the alfalfa weevil from the native habitat of the pest and the experts are hopeful that these parasites and predaceous myites will do what brush drags, street sweepers and burning machines have failed to accomplish in the direction di-rection of exterminating the pest. Some Weber county farmers are advocating plowing up the alfalfa, where the weevil is most destructive and planting to rye, which requires resceding only once in seven years and produces a hay crop almost equal to alfalfa in quantity but more nutritious. A larger specie of the weevil lias been found west of Ogden and near Malad, Idaho, and the government has men in the field studying the insect. |
