Tyler Wist, a field crops entomologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Saskatoon, spoke about the threat aphids can pose to some crops at the recent Saskatchewan Agronomy Update conference.

Wist says aphid populations can “explode” in a short period of time and can pose a serious risk to small grain and pulse crops if left unchecked. In 2024, his department received multiple reports of aphid damage from several regions of the province.

A large part of the threat aphids pose is the fact that they reproduce quickly and can build up their populations very fast. For example, pea aphid populations in pulse crops can double in a matter of just five or six days.

“That’s why I say don’t turn your back on aphids. You can check them one week and then you come back the next week and all those aphids have reproduced. All those aphids that were there before, they’ve now had a chance to feed on your crop, plus now you got all these new aphids” causing damage, he says.

“If you have aphids in your field, keep an eye on them.”

The three most common types of crop-damaging aphids found in Saskatchewan are pea aphids, English grain aphids and bird cherry-oat aphids. English grain and bird cherry-oat aphids are most commonly found in small grains such as barley and oats while pea aphids favour pulse crops including faba beans, lentils and peas.

Aphids cause damage by sucking sap from within the plant. In the case of pulses, if the plant becomes stressed during the flowering stage, it can drop its flowers and seed pods fail to develop as a result.

Wist’s advice to growers is to start scouting for aphids in pulses and small grains by the second week of July, as that’s when their populations typically start to grow. English grain aphids can usually be found in the head of a cereal plant where the seed is starting to fill. Bird cherry-oat aphids can be found in the head but other parts of the cereal plant as well. Their populations can be patchy, which is why Wist says it’s recommended that between 50 and 100 plant heads are checked during scouting.

Make sure they’re dead

There are several measures growers can take to help control aphid populations in their fields.

One of the methods researchers in Saskatchewan have been studying is the impact of plant timing on aphid populations. That includes early planting (mid-May), medium planting (late May) and late planting (early June). Preliminary results indicate crops seeded early tend to have fewer problems with aphids compared to those seeded later in the season.

“Those (late) ones always yielded far worse then than the earlier-planted ones,” says Wist. “Whether or not it was due to aphids, or had something to do with not enough heat units or degree days to get the yield out, we don’t know for sure. But every year the late-planted ones yielded terribly.”

To spray or not to spray is a question many farmers ask when dealing with aphids. Wist points out it can depend on the type of crop being grown. In the case of small grains, once the plant has reached the soft dough stage and the grain has filled, aphids can’t cause any more damage to the plant, so spraying is no longer required.

READ MORE: Keeping aphids in check, online and off

It’s more difficult to assess in pulse crops, he adds, since there’s no evidence to indicate a “stop point” where aphids can’t do any more damage to a plant, and in peas, the older stages have a higher tolerance for pea aphids, as shown by a higher economic threshold.

If you’re going to spray for aphids, Wist recommends conducting a follow-up inspection of the field that has been sprayed, to make sure the pesticide that was used had the desired effect.

“When you spend all that time and money to spray your field and nothing happens to the population when it’s sprayed, it’s frustrating,” he says. “Go back and check after the label says you can go back in the field. Go back and check to make sure that those aphids actually died when (you) sprayed.”

Wist says one area of concern regarding the use of pesticides to control aphids is that they appear to be developing some resistance to some pyrethroids, including lambda-cyhalothrin.

Prairie predators

Beneficial insects can also play an important role in controlling aphids in the field, according to Wist.

Golden-eyed lacewing flies are ferocious predators that feast on pea aphids and kill them by sucking out their innards. Braconid wasp larvae like to gorge themselves on aphids. They kill hosts by laying their eggs inside them, which then hatch with the offspring eating the aphid from the inside out, then cutting a hole in the back end of the host to escape. Lady beetles are also effective aphid killers and can eat as many as 50 to 85 aphids in a day.

Recent research conducted at the University of Calgary indicates one of the spinoff benefits of beneficial pollinating insects being present in a field is that they can cause a spike to yield in many cases due in part to the cross-pollination they promote. That cross-pollination can also help a crop stand to set more evenly and mature more consistently.

Wist says one way farmers can boost the presence of beneficial insects in their fields is to convert unproductive areas into refuges that can help attract them. However, he cautions growers “not to put all their eggs in one basket” and to use whatever integrated pest management tools are available to them to control aphids.

Aphids ahoy?

Predicting when aphids could be a problem is difficult to do, since they tend to migrate from one location to another due to winds. In addition, Wist’s recent data indicate pea aphids may be overwintering on perennials such as alfalfa. The good news in that case, Wist says, is that cold winter temperatures could keep those populations under control.

As for whether aphids could be a threat in 2025, Wist says that will depend largely on weather conditions during the growing season. Aphids tend to prefer mild temperatures around 20 C which is typically when they thrive. Aphids won’t reproduce and can quickly die out when average temperatures are sustained around 30 C or warmer, he adds — like what happened in 2021 under July’s “heat dome.”

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Cereal Aphid Manager helps farmers and crop advisors tackle aphid problems in fields by predicting what aphid populations will be in seven days and the best time to apply insecticide.

The app from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is based on a model that treats a grain field as an entire ecosystem by considering many complex biological interactions — including the impact of beneficial insects that help limit aphid populations.

Wist, an AAFC entomologist based in Saskatoon, applied for research funds to update the app in April through the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture’s funding call, where many grower groups that represent farmers participate in funding research.

According to Wist, the money is needed to help ensure Cereal Aphid Manager keeps up with newer technologies. The app, which came out in March 2018, can be used on Apple and Android platforms, but there have been numerous changes in these operating systems since then.

Wist says he knows several grower-funded research groups are interested in helping get the app back up to speed.

“This was built for an older version of Android, for example, so we’re at that point where we need to do a little bit of upgrading,” he says.

Wist hopes to improve Cereal Aphid Manager in several other areas too — including adding canary seed to the app’s list of crops.

He notes two primary cereal aphid pests on Prairie farms are also a problem in canary seed production. Wist and fellow AAFC research scientist Bill May have completed work on determining economic thresholds for controlling aphids in canary seed crops, which they’d like to see incorporated in an updated Cereal Aphid Manager app.

Wist also hopes to enhance an aspect of the app called the dynamic action threshold, which takes into account the pressure insect predators and parasitoids put on aphid populations.

In simple terms, an action threshold is that point where a pest problem is considered serious enough to warrant actions, like insecticide spraying, that can prevent the pest population from causing economic damage.

The dynamic action threshold in Cereal Aphid Manager factors in the number of different natural enemies of aphids that are present in a grain field and how many aphids they can eat or parasitize per day.

“If you’ve got enough predators and parasitoids in your field and they’re there early enough, they can stop an aphid infestation … and you might not have to get in there with your sprayer,” says Wist.

Wist notes there are new pictures and some recent research data on the voracity of aphid predators and parasitoids he’d like to add to the app to increase its effectiveness as a crop protection tool.

Prairie predators and parasitoids

Presenting at the CropConnect conference in Winnipeg in February, Wist shared photos, videos and information about some beneficial insect predators and parasitoids, not just in cereals but in other crops as well, that farmers could see this coming growing season.

READ MORE: Predators and parasitoids – your bug buddies in the field

This includes lady beetles, commonly referred to as lady bugs. This voracious insect will feast on aphids at both the larval and adult stages, making it “a really great predator” in Wist’s eyes.

Wist says there are numerous species of beneficial parasitic wasps in Prairie crop production. These kill pests by injecting them with eggs that produce larvae, which consume their insect hosts from the inside out.

While his research shows only one parasitic wasp species, Aphidius avenaphis, is a significant natural enemy of cereal aphids, Wist notes it can have a sizable impact.

A single female A. avenaphis wasp, for example, can kill up to 25 to 30 English grain aphids in one day, leaving “aphid mummies” with their offspring inside.

Smartphone tools such as Cereal Aphid Manager enable farmers to factor in insect predators and parasitoids in their spray decisions, but as Wist points out, there are other steps they can take to protect beneficial insects.

One is to provide shelterbelts and other areas where beneficial insects can flourish and also take refuge during the colder months. Undisturbed leaf litter at the base of a tree, for example, is the perfect home for lady beetles nestling in for the winter.

Wist says beneficial parasitic wasps feed on nectar, so seeding some areas within or around fields with flowering plant species gives them a place to eat and build up energy to attack aphids and other pests.

Some lady beetle species feed on pollen, he adds, so having flowering spaces around the farm will help sustain beetle populations.

For scouting tips and more information on practices that can help preserve important pest predators and parasitoids, Wist recommends farmers and crop advisors check out the Field Heroes website.

Wist maintains the Field Heroes campaign, launched by the Western Grains Research Foundation in 2017, has contributed a lot to increased farmer awareness of beneficial insects in cropping systems.

How Cereal Aphid Manager works

The Cereal Aphid Manager app, which can be downloaded from the Apple Store or Google Play, is a scouting tool to help grain producers determine whether an aphid population will grow large enough to pose a significant threat to crop production. Users can also access a French-language version at the touch of a button.

Users walk a certain path through a field, which is recommended by the app. It includes a minimum of five stops, at which users count the number of aphid and beneficial insects. To help them identify insects, Cereal Aphid Manager also includes a photo guide.

After completing the recommended path, the app will provide a prediction for whether to spray or not spray, or if and when the user should sample the field again. The recommendation, along with the survey date, is stored on the user’s device to keep track of a field’s aphid population over the course of a growing season.

According to AAFC, it’s important to note winds can spread cereal aphids from the northern United States onto farms in the Canadian Prairies — something Cereal Aphid Manager cannot predict. Because of this, farmers and crop advisors are urged to check their fields regularly during the growing season, regardless of what the app recommends.

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Grasshopper

Two-stripe grasshopper populations appear to be on the rise, says James Tansey, Saskatchewan Agriculture’s provincial insect and vertebrate pest specialist. Last year’s counts showed populations in excess of 10 per square metre in southeastern Saskatchewan, with highs near Kindersley in excess of 20 per square metre. Lentils and flax are particularly sensitive to damage.

“If we end up with dry conditions in the spring, there’ll be the potential for heavy grasshopper populations regionally,” says Tansey.

June control of field edges, especially those bordered by lush ditches and other prime grasshopper egg-laying areas can make a fundamental difference in later-season grasshopper damage. Control should only be undertaken if the numbers warrant it.

Wheat midge

Wheat midge numbers are also growing, with high populations noted last year in the north-central and west-central growing regions. Expect wheat midge issues in those regions again if 25 millimetres of rain falls before the end of May.

“Producers who have had wheat midge damage in the past should be considering varietal blend choices, and producers should be on the lookout this year,” says Tansey.

Pea leaf weevil and cabbage seedpod weevil

It’s not all bad news on the insect front, however. Pea leaf weevil and cabbage seedpod weevil populations were down significantly province-wide last year. In fact, says Tansey, “We were having trouble finding pea leaf weevil damage at all in 2019.”

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) researchers are currently studying what factors could be contributing to the population decline. Tansey suspects two key weather factors likely played in producers’ favour last year: deep cold snaps with little snow cover in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 winters, together with dry conditions through the early growing season. Since both of these weather factors appear to be increasing in frequency, producers can hope pea leaf and cabbage seedpod weevils may be less notable pests in the future.

While numbers are down in both pea leaf and cabbage seedpod weevils, Tansey cautions producers to remain vigilant. “Despite lower levels, both those insects are invasive and spreading north and east.”

Flea beetle

Whereas dry spring conditions may be depressing weevil numbers, flea beetle populations are being supported.

“If we have another dry spring like we have for the last few, I do anticipate big flea beetle pressures,” says Tansey. “Flea beetles are a big question because they can do so much damage so quickly.”

Bertha army worm

Bertha army worm populations vary significantly from year to year. Last year’s surveys showed lower numbers than the year previous, but that decline will not necessarily impact this year’s numbers.

“Bertha army worm are a cyclical pest. Last year was low but we don’t know what factors contributed to that. There’s just no way of accurately telling what the population will look like this year,” says Tansey. “We’ll be monitoring and posting on that. I recommend producers keep an eye on our surveys.”

Pea aphid

Pea aphid numbers were relatively high in lentils last year. Tansey reports that Saskatchewan Agriculture has a study planned in collaboration with AAFC for this coming growing season on the timing of seeding and spraying for pea aphid control, as researchers are still uncertain about best management practices. The good news, however, is that not all pea aphid control has to come from producers.

“Natural enemies can have a profound effect on pea aphids,” says Tansey. “Producers want to do all they can to support beneficials in their fields.”

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John Gavloski, Manitoba’s provincial entomologist, has been tracking soybean aphid levels since 2001, and the province saw infestations at economic threshold levels only in four years — and never back-to-back.

“A year with economic problems hasn’t been followed by a year that reached those levels. It’s not that it can’t happen. It just hasn’t happened yet,” says Gavloski.

So far, there’s no evidence that soybean aphid overwinters in Manitoba because of our extremely cold winters. Most soybean aphids in the province are likely to have blown in on south winds.

The best time to scout for soybean aphid is around the end of June or early July, says Tkachuk. Ideally, weekly.

Gavloski recommends scouting fields twice at minimum before applying an insecticide. An average of 250 aphids per plant is the threshold at which producers should start thinking about spraying, but only if populations are still increasing.

In other words, if aphid numbers seem high, scout the field, says Gavloski. If the count is average 250 aphids per plant one day, scout again before spraying. If counts remain at roughly 250 aphids per plant the population may have stabilized; if they’re up to 400, the population is increasing and may be moving toward economic injury levels.

Once seeds are at the R6 stage it’s too late to spray, says Gavloski. But most years, he says, spraying isn’t necessary.

Additionally, because fungal pathogens can help keep soybean aphid populations low, producers should be cautious about over-use of fungicides.

“Scout your fields, use pesticides and fungicides when needed, but overuse of any [treatment] causes more harm than good,” says Gavloski.

Cutworm and wireworm

Cutworm is the insect pest both Gavloski and Tkachuk would place second on the list in terms of economic importance for soybean producers.

A good time to start scouting for cutworm is just as the crop is coming up, says Gavloski. “If emergence doesn’t seem good or there’s evidence of clipped plants or bare patches, dig around in those areas,” he says. “It’s a matter of being on top of it early. If there are high levels, control them before they do a lot of damage.”

That being said, cutworm can be really patchy across fields, he says, so producers should scout entire fields and treat only the affected areas. In a couple hundred acres, only 10 to 20 might be affected.

Thresholds are not well researched for cutworm, but producers can take this as a general guideline, says Gavloski: one or more larvae per three feet of row, with the larvae less than two centimetres in length; or 20 per cent of plants cut.

Wireworm is another pest whose impacts on soybean are still poorly understood. “There’s a lot we don’t know about wireworm,” says Tkachuk.

In 2018, MPSG began working with Brandon University professor Bryan Cassone on a project testing wireworm bait trapping methods. Grainews will follow up on this study later in the winter.

In terms of control options for wireworm, producers should be cautious about using neonicotinoid insecticides, she says — unless there’s a history of wireworm infestations in a field.

MPSG has conducted on-farm strip trials comparing treated versus untreated seed and yield response.

“This seed treatment study has been going on for quite a few years, started in 2015,” says Tkachuk. “We’ve got 28 site years. Only in four of those site years did we see a significant positive response to the seed treatment — only 14 per cent of the time did we see a positive response in yield.”

She says that as neonicotinoids are under review by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, it makes sense to limit use of neonics to where they’re really needed.

“We’re funded by farmers and we want to help farmers,” says Tkachuk. “If they can save money on seed treatment, why not? We’re in a honeymoon phase with soybean. Pest pressure will continue, so this doesn’t mean there won’t be a need for seed treatment moving forward.”

MPSG’s website houses many great resources for producers, including a scouting calendar and pest identification guide.

The post Dealing with soybean aphids and cutworms appeared first on Grainews.

This app uses considers these factors to estimate whether or not aphid populations will rise to economic threshold levels. It’s based on an earlier model, Aphid Advisor, used by Ontario-based soybean growers for similar purposes.

“I adapted their model and we used their idea of a smartphone application,” said Tyler Wist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada field crop entomologist.

The app includes images of the aphid species found in Western Canada, as well images of beneficial insects. It takes you on a scouting path in a W-pattern through the field. At each of the five points, you’ll be directed to count the number of aphids on the tiller of randomly selected cereal heads. Once you enter that number, the app will predict whether or not the crop will reach the economic action threshold in a week or so. “It gives the farmer a heads up to know that there might be problems and it gives him an idea as to if there are actually problems right now,” said Wist.

The app takes beneficial insects into consideration, including parasitic wasps, green lacewing larvae, and adult and larval ladybugs. Female parasitic wasps, for instance, will sting aphids and then lay eggs inside it. While you might never see the parasitic wasp itself, “aphid mummies” are the telltale sign that they were indeed there. “When you’re doing your counts of aphids, if you see mummies then you add that to the counts of natural enemies,” Wist said.

The Cereal Aphid Manager app is free for Android and Apple users.

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Last July, Henry, a Saskatchewan farmer, watched as a throng of birds swooped in and out of his durum wheat field. When he scouted the field, he also found some “black bugs,” which prompted him to give me a call.

“You need to look at my durum,” he said. “Birds are swooping, so there must be something in the crop they’re trying to eat.”

Henry farms 2,500 acres of canola, durum and peas southwest of Tompkins, Sask. It was mid-July when he invited me out to his operation to determine what was attracting so many birds to his durum crop.

From the road, the field looked normal. We couldn’t see any abnormal patches or growth. Still, an above-average number of birds were circling and swooping the crop.

Up close, the wheat plants looked healthy. The crop was completely headed out and around the milky stage, and we didn’t find signs of disease or abnormal growth on the plants’ leaves, stems or heads.

When we checked the crop for insects, we found some mosquitoes and dragonflies, but nothing out of the ordinary, except for a noticeable lady beetle and lady beetle larvae population. Lady beetles are beneficial insects because they prey on other insects that feed on crops — often regulating these pest populations.

Likely, the lady beetle adult and larvae population were the reason birds were circling and swooping the field. But what was attracting the beetles?

I knew farmers in this area, including Henry, harvested hay earlier than average this year because of favourable moisture and growing conditions. That fact, in addition to the presence of the lady beetle population in the field, were two big clues to which pest was making a meal out of Henry’s durum wheat crop.

Crop Advisor’s Solution: Not going to wing it when it comes to pests

Because of the favourable moisture and growing conditions that season, farmers in the area, including Henry, cut hay earlier than normal. Aphid infestations tend to manifest after the first hay cut because the winged adults migrate to new hosts. Producers with cereal crops close to hay flats or near areas where alfalfa is cut should scout their fields frequently for aphid populations.

Since the aphid population in Henry’s crop met the economic threshold (12 to 15 aphids per stem prior to the soft dough stage), he chose to spray the field with insecticide. If a rain event had been forecast for the following day or so, the aphid population may have been suppressed because the rain would have disrupted them.

In addition, because lady beetles and lady beetle larvae are natural predators of aphids, had the aphid population not been so high, the beetles may have been able to curb the pest population, eliminating the need for chemical control.

There is no way to avoid aphid infestations — it’s a matter of pest control when it’s necessary. A week after Henry sprayed the wheat crop, we scouted the field. The aphids were gone, as were the birds, which were after the lady beetle larvae.

At harvest, the crop yield was not affected because Henry sprayed in good time to control the aphid infestation. He felt sure his yield would have been lower if he had not sprayed because his neighbours, who chose not to spray, were disappointed with the yield from their aphid-infested crops.

This was the first time Henry had ever encountered aphids in a durum crop, and he plans to scout for them earlier in the season in future.

Charisse Garland works for Richardson Pioneer Ltd. in Swift Current, Sask.

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The cereal aphid app is the first smartphone app developed by AAFC, says Dr. Tyler Wist, a federal research scientist based in Saskatoon. It will guide cereal growers and agronomists through the scouting and sampling process, Wist says, and tell them whether crops are at a stage that leaves them vulnerable to aphid damage. It will base control recommendations on economic thresholds that will depend on the grower’s comfort level with aphids, though 12 aphids per tiller will be the recommended target. The app will also include photos of the three most common cereal aphid species to help people identify them.

But the app’s most interesting feature is that it will take into account the field’s population of the aphids’ predators, including lady beetles, green lacewing larvae, damselbugs, minute pirate bugs, and parasitoid wasps.

“Having natural enemies of aphids in the fields can prevent the aphid population from reaching a damaging level and the app works to incorporate those natural enemies into the mathematical prediction model,” says Wist.

Wist says the app will recommend people keep sampling until a proper sample size is reached. It will then recommend sampling again soon, recommend people not to worry about aphids, or suggest people consider an insecticide application.

Wist says the idea for the app came out of a project funded by the Pest Management Centre in 2012 and 2013. Researchers surveyed natural aphid enemies in cereal fields so they could incorporate those beneficial insects into the thresholds.

Wist adds they were inspired by a University of Guelph smartphone app, called Aphid Advisor, which looked at soybean aphids and their natural enemies. In 2015, Wist and his AAFC colleague Erl Svendsen received funding from the Pest Management Centre to refine the model that took into account natural predators, and use it in a smartphone app.

Wist says it’s been a test project for how to develop these types of apps within AAFC. Several others were involved in building the app, he says, including Elham Karimi, Kirby Frackleton, and Jackson MacDonald.

Wist and his students will be field-testing the app across multiple platforms this summer. Provincial entomologists Scott Meers, Scott Hartley, and John Gavloski will also be putting the app through its paces, along with agrologists recommended by the provincial agrologists.

Scouting tips in the interim

Farmers and agronomists won’t be able to download the cereal aphid app until next year. In the meantime, Wist has some scouting tips.

“Cereal aphids can be a problem wherever the winds bring them,” says Wist. Farmers and agronomists should start scouting as soon as the crop is starting to head.

“Lately, we’ve been seeing aphids in crops from mid-July with a peak in the first week in August,” says Wist. “That three to four week period is the most critical for aphid surveys.”

When the migratory aphids land in a field, they might be confined to a few hot spots at first. However, once they start feeding and reproducing, they can spread through the field.

The first step is to figure out if aphids have landed in the field. Scouters can use a sweep net in a few spots in the field. If they don’t have a sweep net, they can tap plants over a white tray, to see if any aphids fall onto the tray, Wist says. Wist advises checking a few different areas of the field to try to catch any aphid hotspots.

If farmers or agronomists find aphids, Wist says they’ll want to check more systematically by counting aphids on tillers. The economic threshold is an average of 12 to 15 aphids per tiller.

“This threshold is based on previous research on small cereals grains that indicated that this many aphids per head prior to the soft dough stage would reduce yield enough to warrant the cost of an insecticide application,” says Wist. Once crop is past the soft dough stage, aphids can’t damage yields and there’s no need to control them, he adds.

Wist recommends looking at a total of 100 tillers per field. It’s important to make control decisions based on the average over many tillers, rather than a few tillers that have many aphids, he adds. Agronomists and farmers should randomly select 20 tillers from five areas in the field, avoiding headlands and field margins. The sampled areas should each be separated by about 50 paces, he adds.

Top three cereal aphids

There are several cereal aphid species found in the Western Canadian Prairies. English grain aphids and birdcherry-oat aphids are the most common, and often the most damaging. For example, the English grain aphid’s reproductive rate doubles once it starts feeding on the heads.

Greenbug aphids are sometimes found in Western Canada as well. Wist says they cause additional damage to crops because their saliva is toxic to plants.

It’s not essential to identify different aphid species for most scouting purposes, Wist says. But the app will use slightly different growth rates for each species.

Wist has also discovered that the main parasitoid wasp won’t attack the birdcherry-oat aphid, but loves the English grain aphid. That particular insect makes up 98 per cent of the parasitoids that Wist has found so far. Wist is still monitoring aphids and running experiments in the field to figure out how important that parasitoid is in controlling English grain aphid populations, he adds.

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Alberta

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry insect management specialist Scott Meers relies on growers. “We have large areas to cover, so when we get input from growers and agronomists from across the province then we get much better coverage and much better surveys,” Meers said.

And growers get something too: details about their own fields, especially those who work with entomologists year after year.

This year Meers is looking to widen his coverage for bertha armyworm, particularly in the Peace River region. “We feel we’ve been underrepresented up there,” he said.

• Read more: A new species of midge lands on the Prairies

“We have reporting tools for cabbage seedpod weevil and for cutworms,” he continued. “We’d really like agronomists to participate more by sharing numbers.”

For cabbage seedpod weevil, participants are needed in south central Alberta and southern Alberta. Cutworm survey participants are welcome from anywhere in the province. Meers is also looking for soybean fields to monitor.

To participate, contact Scott Meers at: scott.meers@gov.ab.ca.

Saskatchewan

The provincial insect and vertebrate pest specialist in Saskatchewan is Scott Hartley. Every year Hartley conducts a variety of insect surveys throughout the province. “It is primarily the bertha armyworm pheromone trapping where we require grower cooperators during June and July,” Hartley said. “This is the only ‘real time’ survey during the growing season.”

Interested parties should contact Danielle Stephens at pestsurveys@gov.sk.ca.

Manitoba

Manitoba Agriculture entomologist John Gavloski is always grateful when growers offer their assistance.

Most of Gavloski’s insect surveys are done to forecast later risks. These surveys include diamondback moth, bertha armyworm, and grasshoppers. “These trap or insect counts cannot be used to make decisions regarding insecticide applications,” Gavloski said, “but when higher levels of these insects occur in the surveys, farmers and agronomists should give extra priority to scouting for potentially damaging stages at a later date.”

As an example, Gavloski described pheromone trapping bertha armyworm in canola. The pheromone bait is used to lure in male moths, he said, but these are not the damaging stage of this potential pest. “It is the larvae, present in later July and into August that potentially can be damaging,” he said. “So trap counts are only meant to encourage scouting for larvae later in the season if needed, not to suggest that insecticides are needed.”

Furthermore, fields that have high levels of moths in the traps may not actually have high levels of larvae. Traps attract the male moths. In the case of bertha armyworm, the crop stage at the time of egg laying can be important in how attractive the field is for female moths and how many eggs are laid. It is not uncommon for fields with high trap counts to have low levels of larvae. Neighboring fields can end up with very different levels of larvae.

This year, Gavloski is involved in three projects where grower assistance could help.

The first involves cereal leaf beetle. While it is a potential pest, a parasitic wasp can help keep it below economic levels. “We have annually been monitoring where new populations of cereal leaf beetle are showing up,” said Gavloski. If there are no parasitoids established in the population, Gavloski will release some. Gavloski asks growers to contact him directly if they notice cereal leaf beetle larvae or feeding damage.

The second project looks at flea beetles in canola, and their predators and parasitoids. “We need canola fields for these studies,” Gavloski said. “Ideally, within about a 90-minute drive from Winnipeg.”

Finally, Gavloski is looking for cereal fields where aphids can be counted starting in June. Gavloski and his team will look for predators and parasitoids that eat aphids, to establish an economic threshold for aphids in cereal crops that also accounts for their natural enemies.

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“It’s nice to know that you’ve got some good guys in there that are eating the bad guys,” said Patty Reid, a research tech with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. There isn’t an economic threshold for beneficial insects such as ground beetles yet, said Reid. But trapping beneficials gives farmers a look-see, and could factor into a spray decision, she said.

Reid was part of the Canola Council of Canada’s CanoLAB in Vermilion’s Lakeland College this February. During the beneficial insect lab, people peered at beetles under microscopes, took a close look at other preserved beneficial insects and bugs, and even watched beetles feasting on cutworms. Experts were on hand to answer questions and show everyone what they were looking at.

Reid encouraged people to pluck ground beetles from their liquid baths, using tweezers, and count them. She explained how to set ground traps to catch the beetles, and what farmers and agronomists could expect.

Ground traps will catch other insects as well, including pea leaf weevils and flies, she said. But ground beetles are the insects to focus on, Reid says. The beetles are voracious predators of insect pests.

“They eat eggs. They eat larvae. They parasitize larvae,” she said. They also eat adult insects, she added.

How to do it

Farmers can use a professional or home-made trap for catching ground beetles. The professional traps were developed by Dr. Bob Vernon of AAFC in Agasiz, B.C.

To set up and use the professional trap:

1. Use a bulb planter to dig between the rows (Reid recommends a bulb planter because the trap is tapered). The hole needs to be deep enough so that the trap’s top is level with the soil surface, allowing the bugs can walk into it.
2. Add plumbing anti-freeze to the small cup that fits inside the trap.
3. Place the lid on the trap. The serrated lid will keep out mice, frogs, and salamanders.
4. After a week, retrieve the cups. If you wait longer, the cups will stink.
5. Dump the contents into a container. Reid recommends a flat Ziploc container.
6. Sort through the insects in the trap and count the ground beetles

Farmers might have a hard time getting their hands on a professional trap right now. Curious producers can also use a yogurt container and pie plate to create their own traps. To place the trap, dig a hole between the rows, so the top sits flat with the soil surface. Dump the anti-freeze into the container, which acts as a pitfall. Put the pie plate over the container to prevent evaporation.

Sometimes the home-made traps have a one-inch gap between the cover and the pitfall container. Unfortunately, mice and salamanders can squeeze through that gap, fouling the trap, so be prepared.

In a follow up email, Dr. Jim Broatch, pest management specialist with AAFC, wrote that five to 10 traps could help farmers figure out the beetle population in that field.

Broatch says research has been published on how beneficial insects affect foliar pests such as aphids. Ground beetles research “could be the next phase in the understanding of pest management for use in an IPM program,” he writes.

For now, what’s a healthy number of beetles? Broatch said if the beetles have plenty of insects to eat and several crops to occupy, farmers could see high beetle numbers. Reid said they’ve found up to 53 melanarius ground beetles in one trap over a week during their field studies.

How many a farmer will see depends on the year, and whether they’ve sprayed. “The more the better,” said Reid.

Asked whether she had any other advice for farmers trapping beetles, she said: “Just have fun.”

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The report follows a request from France, which is calling for a Europe-wide ban of the substance made by companies including BASF and Cheminova, part of FMC. Neither firm had immediate comment.

The substance is found in products used on a range of fruit and vegetables, but France raised particular concerns about cherries for which it is used to combat fruit fly.

According to EFSA, there is a lack of information, but it said it could not exclude “a potential long-term consumer health risk resulting from residues.”

It cited concerns about toxicity for human health and some U.S. scientific research has found a cancer risk.

France in February banned on its soil a dimethoate-based pesticide used to treat cherries, prompting an outcry from French farmers who say there is no viable alternative.

In a statement on Monday, French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll called for emergency EU-wide measures to prevent the use of products containing dimethoate and the marketing of cherries grown using them.

A European Commission spokesman said the Commission would analyse the report and it would be debated at a closed-door meeting of experts representing the 28 EU member states on Friday.

Dimethoate products, such as FMC’s Cygon and Loveland Products’ Lagon, are registered in Canada for uses in several field crops, fruits and vegetables, ornamentals and alfalfa.

Controlled pests on the products’ Canadian labels include aphids, thrips and grasshoppers, among others.

— Reporting for Reuters by Barbara Lewis; additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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