IT. S. D. A., I'.. E. I'.iil. CS, Part VI. I>. F. I. I.. April L'l. l-.t(»S. 



PAPERS ON DECIDUOUS FRUIT INSECTS AND INSECTICIDES. 



GRAPE ROOT-WORM INVESTIGATIONS IN 1907. 



liy FuKO Johnson, 

 J'lnf/iii/cd ill DcciiliKiKs Fruit Tnscct / iircslifKilioiix. 



INTRODUCTION. 



For several years past the control of certain insect enemies of the 

 grai)e has been a problem of increasing importance with the vine- 

 yardists of the Lake Erie valley. The insect causing most alarm is 

 the grape root-worm {Fidia viticida AValsh). It was in 1891) that 

 serious injury to the gi-ape vine, which proved to be the work of this 

 pest, was first noticed in the famous Chautauqua grape region, at Kip- 

 ley, N. Y. For several years previous to the discovery of this insect 

 in Chautauqua County, it had made serious inroads into the vineyards 

 of the Ohio grape region, and was, in 1805, the subject of investiga- 

 tion by Prof. F. M. Webster, then entomologist of the Ohio Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station, to whom we are indebted for the first 

 records of its complete life history and methods of control, a report 

 of which was i^ublished in Bulletin No. 62 of the Ohio Agricultural 

 Experiment Station. 



Since 1900 this j^est has been the subject of investigations in Chau- 

 tauqua County, by Dr. E. P. Felt, State entomologist of Xew York, 

 and Prof. M. V. Slingerland, of the Agricultural Experiment Station 

 at Cornell University, both of whom made a life-history study of the 

 insect and conducted field experiments in jarring and spraying the 

 vines to reduce the number of beetles. The results obtained by these 

 gentlemen are embodied in Bulletins 59 and 72, New York State Mu- 

 seum, by Dr. E. P. Felt, and in Bulletins 184, 208, and 224, of the 

 Cornell ITniversity Agi-icultural Plxi)eriment Station, by Prof. M. V. 

 Slingerland. In Farmers' Bulletin No. 284, on Insects and Fungous 

 Enemies of the Grape East of the Rocky Mountains, by Messrs. A. L. 

 Quaintance and C Ij. Shear, the grape root-worm is described, and its 

 life history and methods of control are briefly stated. 



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