IPM Updates

Updates will be posted here for our producer-cooperators to access preliminary data.  Our IPM Program is juggling multiple field studies again this season so please recognize processing and any posting of this information is ALWAYS preliminary and a "work-in-progress".  

Please refer to the Prairie Pest Monitoring Protocols for descriptions of the pheromone traps researched and utilized below.  None of the data below should be used to make in-crop applications of pesticides - follow up with scouting to obtain the most accurate data to compare to established economic or action thresholds also available in the specific Pest Monitoring Protocols.

FOR WEEK OF jULY 30, 2018:
Bertha armyworm  pheromone trapping is done for the season and the cumulative counts for our producer-cooperator sites is posted below:

FOR WEEK OF AUGUST 10, 2015:

Salt marsh caterpillars - It's shown up other years and isn't considered an economic pest of canola but they can cause damage and, owing to the aggregated pattern of egg laying, can be an alarming pest for a grower to find.  They will feed on all the above-ground parts of a canola plant including juicy pods. 

Growers will want to know:

- ‎It's a native species with one generation per year.

- Typically, the larvae are heavily parasitized by flies.

- The larvae have a very broad host range and feed on grasses but broadleaf host plants are considered to be more preferable.

- Eggs are laid in batches which leads to aggregated larval activity but can make it a good pest for spot-spraying.

- Because it's a Lepidopteran pest, a Bt-product would be preferable to preserve the beneficials‎ but that can be more expensive.

FOR WEEK OF JULY 23, 2015:

Grasshoppers - Generally speaking, 8-12 grasshoppers hopping per m² is the action threshold for annual cereals and this threshold has been applied as an action threshold in canola.  In pastures and hay crops, the action threshold is generally double so 16-24 grasshoppers hopping per m² and that definitely should have been scouted for at least 2-3 weeks ago to protect the biomass that is now being swathed for hay or now has cows feeding on it.  BE EXTREMELY MINDFUL OF THE PRE-GRAZING RESTRICTIONS for LACTATING COWS and PRE-HARVEST INTERVALS if a grower is suddenly trying to apply insecticides!

Grasshoppers will feed until the hard frost this Fall.  The winged adults present now are mating and laying eggs but they aren’t quite as voracious as the nymphs that are still feeding to fuel their development.  That said, I’ve seen high densities of adults strip portions of a canola field down to main stem stalks so monitor the densities. And please don’t allow growers to spray thinking they will manage next year’s grasshopper populations either – everything depends on the Fall, winter, and Spring because grasshopper egg mortality can be very high if the weather helps. 

Scouting for grasshoppers is generally mid-June until mid-August, depending on their crop’s maturity and harvest date.  The warmer, drier conditions have accelerated grasshopper development 5-7 days ahead of the “average” grasshopper development for Melanopus sanguinipes.  We recommend grasshopper monitoring starts when the third instars are present because that stage is less mobile (and easier to estimate), plus the bulk of its feeding and development is yet to come (so managing them is often more helpful to protecting biomass), and finally the juvenile nymphs are more susceptible to insecticide since they are smaller and actively foraging. 

Please also consider following the PPMN Blog which has included grasshoppers for several weeks inside the Weekly Updates.

FOR WEEK OF JULY 1, 2015:

Canola – Watch for lygus at bolting to early flower. We are finding diamondback moth (DBM)  larvae on-station this week but it usually it isn’t worthwhile to manage them until late flower.  We are already finding parasitoids inside the DBM larvae.  We haven’t processed any sweep-net samples from monitoring sites yet – they are all in the freezer.  Zero Bertha armyworm (BAW) were retrieved in traps this week.

Wheat - Growers in the Peace River region HAVE WHEAT MIDGE FLYING THIS WEEK!!!  Please follow-up with some in-field scouting!!  Each bar in the wheat midge graph represents the cumulative TOTAL for 2 pheromone traps so you can see this past week the numbers suddenly increased.

All of the wheat midge pheromone monitoring traps near Beaverlodge are now showing low numbers of midge but in-field scouting is very important over the next 7-10 days.  Pheromone traps near Falher suddenly increased over the June23-July 1 collection period.  We also understand wheat heads are now starting to emerge from the boot in the Falher area – this suggests midge and anthesis is looking to be very well synchronized. 

More midge are emerging daily.  Management decisions are not accurately determined from the pheromone traps alone – those traps are only an indicator of presence then the peak of midge emergence occurring in a given field.  Instead, carefully watch your wheat staging: If it’s emerging from the boot, it’ll be susceptible to midge so do daily in-field scouting at dusk so you can assess the number of midge per head and compare it to the established economic threshold.  Make sure you recognize the wheat midge from its parasitoid – 2014 monitoring revealed healthy parasitoid populations across the AB-Peace so preserving these beneficial wasps is very important (e.g., areas of Saskatchewan now depend on wheat midge-tolerant cultivars + parasitoids rather than insecticides to manage wheat midge).  Detailed information on wheat midge scouting is available in the most recent Weekly Update.  If you’ve got a wheat midge-tolerant variety, no scouting or insecticide  for wheat midge will be required.

We don’t have any clover data ready yet – processing has started but the initial sweeps this week failed owing to the dampness of the canopy when staff were out on July 1^st.

Please know that our staff begins Annual Canola Surveying on Sunday, July 5, 2015, so I’ll be out of the office most of the week.