work, work, work

It's getting warm out - finally - and we've been working in the field this week. Ron got the rest of his trials (except the sweet corn trials) done and in the ground. He's headed to Monmouth with the crew today to do stand counts.

I've been on the road finishing getting our bark beetle traps out. These are called lindgren funnel traps. We hang lures on the sides of the trap to draw the bark beetles in and they get into the trap and "funnel" down to the catch container at the bottom.


The locations where these traps go vary quite a bit. The survey is targeting invasive beetles that could be potentially brought into the U.S. from another country and also looking to see what beetles could already be here in Illinois. Samples sites include pallet recycling businesses, warehouse distribution centers, industrial parks, green waste recycling, and firewood dealers, just to name a few.

Here is one of my locations - they have green waste recycling and also take pallets, crates, and other wooden shipping containers. We're off today to do collections here and get a few more traps out.