CLOVER INSECTS 125 



eggs are laid in green flower-heads and the maggots 

 suck out the contents of ovary; when grown the 

 maggots enter the ground and pupate; the insect 

 passes the winter as a larva in the soil or in dead 

 clover heads; there are two broods and a partial 

 third; most damage to seed crop is done during 

 August or first part of September; most injury 

 occurs to second-year clover and keeps increasing 

 as clover is allowed to stand. 



Control — Cut first crop of clover as early as 

 possible to allow seed to form early ahead of second 

 generation of midges ; pasturing the first crop does 

 almost as well. 



Clover seed-chalcid '^ {Bnichophagus funchris) 

 Order — Hymenoptera 



This small wasp-like insect is one of our worst 

 clover pests ; the tiny larvae eat out the insides of 

 the seeds leaving only a thin shell ; the insects pass 

 the winter mostly as larvae in the seeds on the 

 ground; the adults appear about May isth and 

 thrust their eggs into the developing ovaries of the 

 flowers of clover ; second brood of flies appears in 

 July and August; injury is greatest to the second- 

 year clover. 



Control — Cut first crop early, as soon as the 

 field comes into bloom ; plow up clover after second 

 crop, plow early in spring. 



The alfalfa weevil ^^ (Phytononms posticus) 

 Order — Coleoptera 



An European snout-weevil first found injuring 

 alfalfa in Utah in 1904; it is found in a small arek 

 in Utah, southern Idaho and southwestern Wyom- 

 ing; the winter is passed as adults in the fields; in 



18, 20^ 21 Folsom— Illinois Expt. Stat., Bull. 134. 



19 Reeves, Miles, et al.— U. S. Dept. Agr., Par's' Bull. 741. 



