Pests are a Pest - Blog 5

I have a bachelors degree in agriculture science and unfortunately to earn that title, I had to take an awful class called Intemology (i.e. the study of bugs). Sixteen entire weeks, one whole semester, nearly fifty hours of nothing except bugs. Their anatomy, life cycle, pest category and many other terribly boring topics. I remember thinking, “This is so dumb, I’m never going to need or use ANY of this ridiculous information”. I was so confident that Intemology was a waste of time, I even threw away all of my notes when the semester ended.

Fast forward to the middle of my summer internship, where I found a serious insect outbreak in a soybean field. My mentor explained how I needed to know the insect family and life cycle to decide what actions to take... WHAT?? Then came the realization that I should have paid better attention in class and not filed those papers in the short-term memory part of my brain.

Fast forward again to my full-time career and I was still using that information very regularly. “Okay, this pest goes through complete metamorphosis and is about to transition to the next stage. When it does, it will quit feeding on this crop”. Or “This pest has a chewing mouth part, so you are looking for that type of damage on the plant”. When I left my job I thought I had finally broken my ties with Intemology. Well jokes on me, because I now have a flower farm and use this knowledge more than ever. After much denial, I have chosen to accept this arranged marriage between myself and the world of bugs.