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Coffee Talk spotlights Red Willow County’s UNL Extension Office
McCOOK, Neb. - For the first Coffee Talk of 2026, the Gazette met with Ruby Collins and Samantha Daniel of the University of Nebraska Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension offices, or more precisely, “Nebraska Extension.” Both Collins and Daniel hold the title of Water and Cropping Systems Educator, though each is an entomologist by training.
The first half of the discussion focused on Nebraska Extension and the services it provides to the region. In the second half, the conversation shifted to the subject that most clearly reflects their passion—entomology.
This particular Coffee Talk could easily have been billed as a “meet the author” event. Collins contributes a regular feature to the Gazette’s agriculture page, while Daniel’s writing is frequently included in University of Nebraska–Lincoln press materials and has been published in the Gazette on numerous occasions.
Nebraska Extension and its role
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension describes itself as having 157 years of impact across the state, operating through 83 county offices and supported by roughly 350 experts working directly with Nebraska communities, along with four research and education centers. Its strategic direction centers on strengthening Nebraska’s agriculture and food systems, inspiring individuals and communities, and enhancing the health and well-being of all Nebraskans. Extension programs span a wide range of focus areas, including 4-H youth development, livestock systems, horticulture and landscaping, agricultural profitability, food, nutrition and health, early childhood education, rural prosperity initiatives, and water and cropping systems, reflecting its broad mission to serve both urban and rural communities statewide.
Collins and Daniel expanded on that definition by emphasizing the organization’s on-farm research program, which enables producers to test agricultural practices directly in their own fields using their existing equipment. The Extension’s approach allows products and methods to be evaluated under real-world local conditions, including specific soil types, climate and farm operations, while ensuring research topics are driven by what producers want to test.
Collins said, “These aren’t small plots at a research center. This is on your field with your equipment, you know, your management practices.”
“Maybe you want to compare one or two things,” Collins suggested, “Then we can come in and help set that up, then we’ll collect the data and then run the analysis.”
The program is designed to minimize costs to producers, with Extension staff handling project setup, data collection and analysis.
One example highlighted was testing the effectiveness of seed treatments. Daniel offered the example of a grower in Perkins County. “He grows dry beans, and he grows black-eyed peas.” Daniel explained, “One thing he does is he applies a seed treatment every year. He applies it to beans. He applies it to some other crops as well.”
Considering the cost of the treatment, Daniel suggested, “Why don’t we do a test and just run strips with and without that seed treatment, and let’s see if there’s any benefit to it.”
The 2025 test results showed no significant difference between treated and untreated seeds. Daniel urged caution, however, saying, “In science, you really don’t want to make any conclusions from just one year and one field, so we want to continue this study for at least a couple more years. Daniel concluded, “Then maybe we can come back and say, is this really necessary?”
Current on-farm research areas include evaluating sorghum seeding rates, sulfur application rates for corn and soybeans, nitrogen management practices and their effects on water quality, and the performance of new herbicides for controlling Palmer amaranth.
Palmer amaranth is a fast-growing, highly competitive broadleaf weed that infests row crops such as corn and soybeans and is notorious for developing resistance to multiple herbicides.
Extension Beyond the Farm
When asked about services offered to the non-agricultural community, Collins and Daniel discussed a range of programs, including 4-H youth development, Master Gardener initiatives, food safety training (e.g., ServSafe classes), early childhood education support, and assistance with home gardening and landscaping.
Collins specifically mentioned the early childhood specialist, saying that “Tasha (Wolf) does all kinds of things, but she mostly works with childcare providers.” Collins added, “She does a lot of train-the-trainer type things.”
They emphasized that Extension serves as a gateway to University of Nebraska expertise, linking local communities with research specialists and resources regardless of their distance from the main campus. Most importantly, the pair emphasized the range of expertise available to county residents. Daniel said, “I can contact any of my colleagues, and then I can also just reach out to the specialists, those are the folks with the PhDs, the ones doing a lot of the research and whatnot, and get answers for people.” Daniel added, “So it doesn’t matter if I don’t know the answer to something. It’s okay. I will find it, and that’s what we do.”
An Enthusiasm for Entomology
The discussion then moved beyond the Extension’s structure and services to explore the two speakers’ shared interest in entomology. Both Collins and Daniel study insects and spiders, with Daniel focusing on spiders for her master’s project, examining whether spiders in cornfields feed on crop pests such as Western bean cutworm and western corn rootworm.
The discussion included a conversation about beneficial insects. The speakers emphasized the importance of integrated pest management and the need to protect species that naturally help control pests. Beneficial insects include ladybugs, ground beetles, spiders, bees, and parasitoid wasps. Parasitoids, which are tiny wasps, lay their eggs inside pest insects, and the developing larvae consume the host from within, a process Collins and Daniel likened to a science-fiction movie scenario.
Daniel said, “If you have ever seen sci-fi movies or like Alien, you know, when the alien is busting out of somebody’s stomach or something? I swear that they got that from the insect world.” As an example, Daniel cited one species of parasitoids in particular. “They’re little, tiny wasps. They don’t sting people, and usually they’re pretty host specific; they go after a certain type of pest.” Daniel explained, “Usually, the female will go find the pest, if it’s a caterpillar or whatever, she’ll puncture it and lay eggs inside of it, then the eggs will hatch, and the larvae of that parasitoid wasp will then begin to basically eat that caterpillar from the inside out.”
They cautioned that broad-spectrum insecticides can inadvertently kill beneficial organisms, sometimes leading to secondary pest outbreaks such as spider mite infestations. As a result, they stressed the importance of increased scouting and improved local pest monitoring to reduce unnecessary pesticide applications and better target treatments when needed.
Collins asked, “Can anyone think of a good Bug Off the top of your head that you might want in a field?” Collins suggested, “Think of the ladybug, ground beetles, spiders and bees are good.” Collins said, “We’ve been in the field and have seen ladybugs eating the eggs of a cutworm moth, so we know they do it, and we have that data to show that too.”
Speaking of pesticide manufacturers, Collins said, “I know they do try to formulate a lot of pesticides to not affect the beneficials, but some of them are broad spectrum.”
Daniel urged caution with broad-spectrum insecticides.
“A good example is sometimes in corn and in soybeans, if you apply a broad-spectrum insecticide and the conditions are right, you can end up with a flare of spider mites. If you get enough of them, they can cause issues. The reason is that the broad spectrum has knocked down the beneficials that are out there keeping that spider mite population in check.”
When asked about local insects, Collins replied,
“I will make my pitch for, not my favorite insect, but one of my favorite stories of insects…and that’s the army cutworm moth, which everyone recognizes as the Miller moth.” “I know nobody likes them,” she observed, “but they have a really interesting story, because they will emerge in May and they congregate everywhere, but what they’re doing is migrating to the Rockies.”
Collins continued, “So they work their way up to there, and then that’s one of the first foods that grizzly bears eat when they come out of hibernation.” “So the bears are up there just eating these moths that are packed with protein; they’ll eat, like 40,000 of them a day. It’s insane. And then at the end of the summer, the moths just kind of work their way back down to the plains, and then they go through their final diapause to become sexually mature, and then start laying eggs. And then the egg, the larvae will overwinter, and then the cycle happens again.”
Collins concluded, “I think migrating insects are interesting in general. You know, the monarch, of course, is probably our most famous migrating insect, but the Miller moth, I think, has a really interesting story. It’s interesting to me that the Grizzlies are up there eating these moths, and they come from all over.”
Collins and Daniel also discussed the surprisingly complex world of insects and spiders, noting that carrion beetles, or burying beetles, display a level of parental care that is unusual among insects, actively tending to their young rather than abandoning them. Dung beetles, they said, are equally remarkable, capable of navigating by the Milky Way itself as they roll their prized cargo away from competitors. Jumping spiders entered the conversation for their excellent vision and emerging research suggesting they may even dream, exhibiting REM-like sleep patterns that hint at a richer inner life than once assumed. Wolf spiders rounded out the discussion as beneficial household predators, harmless to people and notable for the sight of mothers carrying their young on their backs, a vivid example of how even common creatures can challenge assumptions about the natural world.
Emerging and Invasive Insects
Collins and Daniel also fielded questions about current insect issues making headlines, beginning with the New World screwworm. They told the group that while the pest is not present in Nebraska, it has been detected near the Mexico border and is being closely monitored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The screwworm fly lays its eggs in open wounds on livestock and wildlife, and control efforts focus on breaking its reproductive cycle by releasing sterile male flies. A new sterile fly production facility is planned in Texas to support those efforts.
“They do have a pretty good method of control with the sterile males,” Collins said. “They’re irradiating them, and it really does break the cycle.”
Closer to home, a question from former mayor Dennis Berry prompted discussion of the emerald ash borer, which was confirmed in Lincoln County in 2024. Collins and Daniel explained that Nebraska Extension can help residents identify potential infestations and work with the Forest Service to track and monitor the spread of the invasive insect.
As the conversation wound back to Extension’s day-to-day role in the community, Collins and Daniel encouraged residents to reach out with insect-related questions of any kind. They emphasized that Extension provides free insect identification for agricultural producers and homeowners, will make garden visits when needed, and accepts insect specimens for identification, preferably frozen. They also highlighted their educational outreach, including aquatic insect programming that reaches more than 300 children each year at Harlan County Lake and ongoing work with 4-H on insect-related activities.
Coffee Talk is an unscripted round-table discussion with a community leader held on the fourth Wednesday of each month at Citta Deli in McCook.