 So far in the 2020 growing season, there have been several reports of wheat stem salt fly in the area, especially in regions of the north central, northwest, and southwestern part of the state. There's probably a little bit of a connection there due to the drier conditions, especially in that southwestern area of the state. These have been reported by multiple people. IPM scouts, some of our agronomists and NDSU extension specialists, as well as extension agents through the area. Wheat stem salt fly has been a hit and miss issue over the last five years. Really in areas really from that Dickinson area up to Stanley and getting up to that Mohall area overall. So keeping in mind what you'll be looking forward to in terms of symptoms to maybe hint to us to be out in the field. One of those might be the premature addition of the head or bleaching of the head. There are actually many different reasons why this could happen. So wheat stem salt fly could really just be one of those reasons for you to be out in the field and scouting. When you think about control, we often want to think about the life cycle of the wheat stem salt fly. Oftentimes it's the immature part of the life cycle where most of the damage will be inflicted on the wheat plant. In severe instances, wheat stem salt fly could get you anywhere from 10 to 25 percent yield loss by the end of the growing season when heavy infestations are in place. From time to time that number may grow depending on how severe the infestation was and how windy the conditions were in your crop. The main reason for that is how that immature specimen will feed. The egg is inserted within the stem of the plant and as it hatches it will begin traversing up and down the stem of that plant feeding on the inside of that stem. In windy conditions that stem has become weakened and could cause lodging to that crop leading to some of that further yield loss overall. So we need to think about how can we control wheat stem salt fly in a field location. One of the first things that come to mind is chemical control. This is rather ineffective for two different reasons. One in that immature stage, that egg that immature is inside the center of that plant, that contact insecticide cannot come in contact with that specimen. When you think about the adult stage, the goal would really be controlling the adult before eggs are laid. However, adults have rare feeding habits and really don't come in contact with the chemicals on those leave sites for very long. So really it's rather ineffective. So you have to look for other methods of control. Think about going out and doing your scouting first. The first idea might be looking to harvest changes that you might need to do for wheat stem salt fly. First, go to an area within the interior part of the field. Pick one row and evaluate 50 consecutive stems of those plants. Go ahead and cut that open looking to evaluate for that specimen inside the stem. Do the same thing near the field edge. If 15% of those plants or more do show positive indications of that specimen, go ahead and use that as a suggestion or a threshold level to consider swathing your crop rather than straight harvesting. That will be one of big issues to consider if you have a high infestation. Other ideas you could use is thinking about what next year may hold. One, consider a crop rotation, getting away from this host. This might be things like oats, pulses, might be soybean or other crops that are not impacted by wheat stem soft fly. The last thing to consider might be variety type that you're using. One of the popular varieties made by NDSU released in 2009 was variety mott. This is a solid stem variety where that immature specimen struggles to survive and feed on the interior of that plant.