[University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Research and Extension
University of Arkansas System. Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board. Benjamin Thrash,
Graduate Assistant Entomology, University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, Lonoke
Research and Extension Center]
[Video shows Thrash standing in an edamame research plot with plants and
cages.] My name is Ben Thrash. I’m an entomology master’s graduate student. I am
doing the study on edamame soybeans, which is a new crop to Arkansas. Behind us
is a stinkbug threshold study where we infest each one of these cages with a
different amount of stinkbugs. We have one stinkbug per row foot, one every two
row feet and one every six row feet.
In this study, I’m looking at different stinkbug
thresholds for edamame soybeans, so we can determine when a farmer needs to be
able to treat his edamame fields for the control of stinkbugs.
The reason I’m doing this study is because the
stinkbug threshold in conventional soybeans is a lot higher than what it will be
in these edible soybeans that will go to market and go to restaurants, so they
have to look a lot prettier.
Each one of these cages, I infest it with certain
levels of stinkbugs and then seven days after treatment I kill them and then
fourteen days after treatment I will eliminate them. So then we pull a certain
number of pods out of the cages, take them back to the lab, die the pods and
count the number of times that’s fed on the pods in each cage. So then we can
determine an amount of damage associated with each level of stinkbugs. [Video
shows a comparison of a conventional soybean pod versus an edamame pod.]
All of my research was funded by the Arkansas
Soybean Promotion Board and I’d like to thank them also.
[For additional information visit
www.uaex.edu. University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Research and
Extension University of Arkansas System. Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board]
University of Arkansas • Division of Agriculture
Cooperative Extension Service
2301 South University Avenue
Little Rock, Arkansas 72204 • USA
Phone (501) 671-2000 • Fax (501) 671-2209
