Well! I guess it’s time to say goodbye, this summer sure did fly by!
My name is Madysen
Jones and once my work term ends, I will be heading back to Edmonton to
finish up my studies at the University of Alberta. I am currently studying
psychology in a Bachelor of Arts program.
This was my second summer working with the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program. Over the last 4 months, I worked mostly with the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network project. This included setting out traps for diamondback moth, flea beetle, bertha armyworm, and swede midge along the field edges at commercial canola fields. We collected and redeployed our traps weekly, bringing samples back to the lab to process and identify. Once processed, the data is entered and utilized to help growers make important decisions about their fields.
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| Figure 1. One of our 2023 PPMN traplines featuring a diamondback moth trap along the edge of a commercial canola field. Photo credit: Maddy Jones AAFC-Beaverlodge. |
Additionally, I was able to help with our new 2023 Living Labs
AB-Beef project. For this project, we installed greenhouse gas chambers into
the soil and collecting greenhouse gas samples weekly. Periodically, we changed
out PRS® probes and take soil samples to compare with greenhouse gas readings. I
enjoyed learning about this new project and am excited to see how it progresses
over the next few years!
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Figure 2. Maddy Jones and Gareth Larsen installing a greenhouse gas chamber for the 2023 Living Labs AB-Beef project. Photo credit: Aarika Harpe AAFC-Beaverlodge.
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When I am not working out in the field or processing samples
from our 2023 Prairie Pest monitoring or 2023 Living Lab AB-Beef you can find
me in the lab creating labels for carabid
beetle voucher (also called ground beetles) collected between 2002 and 2023
for multiple projects. These specimens were identified by one of our
technicians, Shelby
Dufton, and help give us important information about how the biodiversity
and activity-density of this important group of natural enemies has changed
over the last 20 years in the Peace River region.
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Figure 4: Carabid
beetle vouchers. Photo credit: Maddy Jones AAFC-Beaverlodge. |
My
favourite part of every summer working with IPM is always the fieldwork. Our
annual canola survey is a time where we get to do a lot of fieldwork, we spend
a week or more traveling around the Peace River region collecting sweep-net
samples to monitor for insects such as Lygus and the cabbage seed pod weevil. This
summer our canola survey looked a little different than previous years, we
required permission to enter prior to monitoring, but that did not stop us from
completing another successful survey.
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Figure 5: Maddy Jones
sweeping a field near Girouxville during the 2023 Canola Survey. Photo credit: Aarika Harpe
AAFC-Beaverlodge. |
I enjoyed working with IPM for another summer and will take
all that I have learned back with me to University in Edmonton. This position
has inspired me to take my first entomology course and I am excited to continue
to grow my knowledge of insects! Wish me luck!
Author: Madysen Jones
