UNL researchers study damaging wheat curl mite

Winter wheat has been harvested, but the threat of crop destruction has not gone away. The enemy farmers face even after the combines are parked is so tiny that a microscope must be used to see it.

The wheat curl mite itself does not kill a plant. Rather, a virus often carried by the mite, known as wheat streak mosaic virus, can infect a field.

Infected crops can be identified by mottling and light green streaks, which eventually give way to blotches that leave a mosaic pattern.

Justin McMechan from the University of Nebraska Lincoln Agriculture Laboratory is conducting research on the migrati...