In this project there was a collaborative effort between the faculty of the Department of Entomology from Princeton (Villanueva), Lexington (Obricky and Bessin), County Extension Agents from Trigg (Graham Cofield) and Monroe (Ken Johnson) counties, and Amish farmers in both locations (Cerulean and Vernon Communities). The sugarcane aphid is a devastating invasive pest species that in 2014 and 2015 almost wipe out many sweet sorghum fields in many areas of the USA. Kentucky is the main producer of sorghum molasses in the USA, thus this project helped the sweet sorghum farmers. We supported the sorghum (sweet and grain sorghum) producers in several ways: (a) we facilitated the registration of insecticides to control this pest, (b) conducted studies on small replicated tests in the Research and Education Center in Kentucky (comparing insecticides to control the sugarcane aphid), (c) planted sorghum at different dates (transplant vs. earlier, late planting), (d) collected data from growers fields from both sites,  (e) educated farmers and conducted field days dedicated specially to Amish growers. In Cerulean sweet sorghum farmers followed the guidelines of the University of Kentucky personnel using insecticides in some part of their fields, whereas in Vernon the farmers were trying to grown organic sweet sorghum and for this they utilized natural enemy releases. At the end of the growing season the Cerulean farmers produced larger yields compared with Vernon farmers, but the pest was not as devastating as in the previous season. The study is being continued in 2017. A presentation of these findings was done at the North Central Branch of the Entomological Society of America and short note was put online:

Insecticides Registered Against the Sugarcane Aphid on Grain & Sweet Sorghum in Kentucky for 2016