 One of the big things out in the field when scouting for pest insects is not to just stop there. Oftentimes we go out to scout for aphids, weevils, other types of bad insects, spider mites for example, but the one thing we always forget to think about scouting for is going to be our beneficial insects. There are dozens of different types of beneficial insects that are present across not just North Dakota but across the country and actually I could probably take that dozens and make it hundreds if you wanted in terms of the number of specimens that are out there. Today I briefly just wanted to hit three of the big ones that are in the area. First of all, the ladybug. That is probably one of the biggest ones that you're going to see in parts of the Northwest, North Central and for the most part throughout North Dakota. Everyone can recognize the ladybug, that small oval quarter inch upwards to a half inch long beetle. Everyone recognized by either red and black or orange and black colorations. The reason they're such fantastic beneficial insects is their ability to feed in high numbers. Let's take the soybean aphid for example. In a soybean plant, 250 aphids per plant is your economic threshold to spray. Both the adult and the immature ladybug can actually feed on 200 plus aphids per day. So just think about that. In your economic threshold, we can already knock out 200 of those aphids out of that 250 just by having them present if they're in high numbers. So when you're scouting, use that net. Make sure you're kneeling down to see if they're there. You might be able to prevent an entire chemical application. Another one of those insects would be that of the lace wing. Lace wing, very thin. It's about a centimeter, centimeter and a half long but really thin body. It actually has really tall wings if you will and it's very highly bane. They come in two colors, light green and that of a light brown color. Again, they can feed in high numbers, not just aphids but different types of mites and other small insects like scale insects. The last one I want to bring up is the minut pirate bug. When you hear that name, you think minut, you think small. It's about three millimeters long. Pirate bug, I always think of the coloration with dark and white checkered pattern on the wings. These have piercing sucking mouth parts. They can use that piercing sucking mouth part to drive in the back of a mite, an aphid and they'll begin to eat on that specimen to reduce the level in your field site. The one thing I will say is they tend to have a bad rap. They can bite people as you work through the end of the summer. Of course, as crops start coming out of the field, trees start to lose leaves. That's when they move from those wood agricultural sites into areas where people can be. While they can have a pretty good bite, they are actually really good insects in the field. Using an entomology, when we talk about scouting, we talk about using a 15 inch diameter net and being out in the field doing sweep netting. You can see that here, a 15 inch diameter net. Oftentimes we're going to do 20 sweeps at five different field sites when doing that. As I said earlier with the beneficial insects, not only do you want to look for your pest insects, make sure you're looking for your beneficial insects as well. As you take your sweeps, go ahead and count the beneficials that be in there too and note what might be there. Having them in high numbers may be that key to preventing a future insecticidal application.