Tag Archives: Agriculture

Bugs I Hate

Posted on September 29, 2016 by the roused bear

I admit that I am a little different than most folks.  I enjoy watching insects.  I find their behaviors fascinating and some are quite beautiful.  I like most and there are some I am pretty indifferent about.  And then there … Continue reading →

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Three Habitats

Posted on November 6, 2014 by the roused bear

This summer, I was able to attend a bioblitz at the Whiterock Conservancy near Coon Rapids, Iowa. On one of the field trips we saw three types of habitat typical to Iowa.  We traveled through the first two to find … Continue reading →

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The Prophylactic use of Pesticides

Posted on March 12, 2014 by the roused bear

Many decades ago I went to college at Iowa State University.  One of the issues we talked about in my biology classes was “the prophylactic use of antibiotics.”  Back in the late 1970’s there were professors at this agricultural school … Continue reading →

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Are Seed Coatings Killing Bees?

Posted on February 11, 2014 by the roused bear

I subscribe to a number of lists about topics I am interested in, and recently saw some stuff about a class of chemicals that have recently been banned in the EU, and is still in use here in the United … Continue reading →

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More on Infrastructure

Posted on March 24, 2013 by the roused bear

I looked at some land use data for Iowa.  Iowa State University Outreach and Extension publishes it here.  Calculating the numbers a little bit shows 74% of the land in Iowa as “cropland.”  Apparently there are several different types of cropland, … Continue reading →

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Clean Beans and Aphids

Posted on December 31, 2012 by the roused bear

Clean beans created the conditions that caused outbreaks of soybean aphids in the same way that pouring an accelerant (for example, gasoline) around the outside of a building would cause the conditions for a fire. The soybean aphid is Aphis … Continue reading →

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