Alfalfa, also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as well as a green manure and cover crop. The name alfalfa is used in North America. The name lucerne is more commonly used in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The plant superficially resembles clover, especially while young, when trifoliate leaves comprising round leaflets predominate. Later in maturity, leaflets are elongated. It has clusters of small purple flowers followed by fruits spiralled in two to three turns containing 10–20 seeds. Alfalfa is native to warmer temperate climates. It has been cultivated as livestock fodder since at least the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Megachilidae is a cosmopolitan family of mostly solitary bees. Characteristic traits of this family are the restriction of their pollen-carrying structure to the ventral surface of the abdomen, and their typically elongated labrum. Megachilid genera are most commonly known as mason bees and leafcutter bees, reflecting the materials from which they build their nest cells ; a few collect plant or animal hairs and fibers, and are called carder bees, while others use plant resins in nest construction and are correspondingly called resin bees. All species feed on nectar and pollen, but a few are kleptoparasites, feeding on pollen collected by other megachilid bees. Parasitic species do not possess scopae. The motion of Megachilidae in the reproductive structures of flowers is energetic and swimming-like; this agitation releases large amounts of pollen.
The Little Rascals is a 1994 American family comedy film produced by Amblin Entertainment, and released by Universal Pictures on August 5, 1994. The film is an adaptation of Hal Roach's Our Gang, a series of short films of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s which centered on the adventures of a group of neighborhood children. Directed by Penelope Spheeris, who co-wrote the screenplay with Paul Guay and Stephen Mazur, the film presents several of the Our Gang characters in an updated setting, featuring re-interpretations of several of the original shorts. It is the first collaboration by Guay and Mazur, whose subsequent comedies were Liar Liar and Heartbreakers.
Blister beetles are beetles of the family Meloidae, so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin. About 7,500 species are known worldwide. Many are conspicuous and some are aposematically colored, announcing their toxicity to would-be predators.
The genus Megachile is a cosmopolitan group of solitary bees, often called leafcutter bees or leafcutting bees; it also includes the called resin bees and mortar bees. While other genera within the family Megachilidae may chew leaves or petals into fragments to build their nests, certain species within Megachile neatly cut pieces of leaves or petals, hence their common name. This is one of the largest genera of bees, with more than 1500 species in over 50 subgenera. The alfalfa leafcutter bee is managed on a commercial scale for crop pollination, and has been introduced by humans to various regions around the world.
Alfalfa mosaic virus (AMV), also known as Lucerne mosaic virus or Potato calico virus, is a worldwide distributed phytopathogen that can lead to necrosis and yellow mosaics on a large variety of plant species, including commercially important crops. It is the only Alfamovirus of the family Bromoviridae. In 1931 Weimer J.L. was the first to report AMV in alfalfa. Transmission of the virus occurs mainly by some aphids, by seeds or by pollen to the seed.
Tylenchorhynchus is a genus of nematodes including many species of plant parasites. The classification of stunt nematodes - those including the genus Tylenchorhynchus - is unstable; many newly discovered species within this genus are reconsidered to be actually subspecies. Stunt nematodes such as Tylenchorhynchus and the closely related genera, Anguillulina and Merlinia, include more than 250 known species. Members of these genera possess similar anatomy and may be easily mistaken for one another. Some debate has led to the classification of single species under different names in two distinct genera.
Loxostege sticticalis is a species of moth of the family Crambidae. It was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1761 and is found in the Palearctic and Nearctic realms.
Loxostege is a genus of moths of the family Crambidae.
Loxostege commixtalis, the alfalfa webworm, is a species of moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Francis Walker in 1866. It is found in Fennoscandia, Estonia and northern Russia. It is also found in North America, where it ranges from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador west to the Yukon.
Loxostege ephippialis is a species of moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Johan Wilhelm Zetterstedt in 1839. It is found in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia and North America.
Loxostege turbidalis is a species of moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Treitschke in 1829. It is found in most of Europe, except Ireland, Great Britain, Norway, the Benelux and the Iberian Peninsula. It has also been recorded from Russia, Turkey, China and Japan.
Loxostege leuconeuralis is a species of moth in the family Crambidae. It is found in Afghanistan.
Loxostege allectalis is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Augustus Radcliffe Grote in 1877. It is found in the United States, where it has been recorded from southern California to Texas, and to Central America.
Loxostege anartalis is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by Augustus Radcliffe Grote in 1878. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from coast to coast in Canada. In the west, the range extends south to California.
Loxostege lepidalis is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by George Duryea Hulst in 1886. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Alberta and eastern Washington to California and New Mexico.
Loxostege typhonalis is a moth in the family Crambidae. It was described by William Barnes and James Halliday McDunnough in 1914. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Arizona and New Mexico.
Hypera postica, commonly known as the alfalfa weevil, is a species of beetle in the superfamily Curculionoidea; it can be found in alfalfa fields throughout Europe. Considered a destructive threat to alfalfa production in North America, several accidental introductions have been successfully countered though the use of a variety of biological control species.
Alfalfa pest, pests specifically linked to alfalfa by name, may be:
