Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station 295 



an acre as compared with 40 cents in 1915 and $1.19 in 1914. This 

 experiment will be continued for two more seasons, making five in all. 



An outbreak of one of the false chinch bugs (Nysius minutus 

 Uhl.;* in the spring of 1916 in the Salt River Valley called for some 

 attention from the experimental standpoint. The most important crops 

 attacked were Irish potatoes and flax. The principal source of the 

 insects seems to have been the common pig v^eed, Chenopodium album. 

 On weeds the insects may be destroyed by means of blast torches or 

 strong sprays of kerosene emulsion. On vegetable crops nicotine sul- 

 fate — whale oil soap solution was recommended. Experimental work 

 with these insects was limited to attempts to control them on experi- 

 mental plots of flax at the Experiment Station Farm near Phoenix. 



On May 15 the flax plants were literally swarming with the bugs, 

 mostly in the adult stages. The seed was the special object of attack, 

 the entire seed crop being seriously threatened. The flax was growing in 

 rows and collecting the insects by mechanical means was obviously the 

 most practical method of protecting the crop. A special galvanized 

 iron collector was devised to be used with a film of kerosene on water 

 in the collecting pan as in ordinary hopperdozers, and this proved satis- 

 factory for work on small plots. For collecting these insects on large 

 acreages of flax the same principle has been incorporated in plans 

 drawn up for a simple device on wheels ^ which can be pushed at a 

 walking pace along the row. Flax seed seems to be a promising crop 

 for southern Arizona and these bugs will have to be contended with 

 from time to time if this industry is developed. Their control by me- 

 chanical means in flax fields appears to be an easy matter. The col- 

 lecting device will be perfected and given a practical demonstration 

 when the false chinch bugs appear again in injurious numbers. 



A. W. Morrill, 

 Consulting Entomologist. 



*Determined by the late O. Heideniann of the U. S. Bureau of Entomology. 

 Closely related if' not a subspecies of the common false chinch bug, Nysius ericae 

 Schill (A\ angiistatus Uhl.) 



