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Tag Archives Insect

Black beetles on canola buds.
Crops, Features

Want better insect surveys? Here’s how you can help

Provincial entomologists are looking to widen their insect survey networks

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Every year provincial entomologists hit the fields, setting pheromone-baited traps and monitoring insect activity. Your help with these projects could improve the information available in your region. 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 […] Read more
Lining up the beneficial beetles from an insect trap. These are melanarius beetles, which belong to the carabid, or ground beetle, family. 
Ground beetles prey on pest insects. 

Crops, Features

Want to know which bugs are in your field? Try traps

Trapping beneficial beetles can help you see just what’s living on your land

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Wondering what types of beneficial insects you have beetling around your fields? Try a ground trap. “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 […] Read more
Mark’s problem area was located in the north 30 acres of an 80-acre field. In the affected area, only one plant was present per 15 feet of row on average. Neighbouring corn and canola fields were healthy.
Crops, Features, Soybeans

Crop Advisor’s Casebook: Planter problems or pesky pests?

A Crop Advisor's Solution from the January 24, 2017 issue of Grainews

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Three weeks after planting, I was called out to Mark’s 1,500-acre farm, located south east of Winnipeg, Man., where he grows soybeans, canola and spring and winter wheat. Mark wanted to know why an area of his soybean plant stand was so thin. The thin plant stand was located in the north 30 acres of […] Read more
Coop Switzerland posted this photo on Twitter. The Coop will be partnering with Essento to offer insect-based burgers.
Features

Grasshopper burgers are on the menu

Insect burgers will soon be on sale in Switzerland. But they may not be for everyone

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In Sunday school we kids were taught that John the Baptist ate grasshoppers and honey. “How gross,” we thought. We didn’t know that John the Baptist was way ahead of his time. Folks find it repelling when I tell them of the piles of dried caterpillars and grasshoppers for sale at Zambian food markets. Well, […] Read more
A bertha armyworm gets its fill on a canola seed pod.
Crops, Wheat & Chaff

Controlling bugs with seed treatments

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Technology has given western Canadian farmers access to a wide range of options when it comes to insect control in canola. Crucifer and striped flea beetles, wireworm, cutworm, root maggot, cabbage seedpod weevil, bertha armyworm and diamondback moth are just some insect pests that can be particularly problematic for both crop health and farmers’ bottom […] Read more
Watch for wireworms in potatoes
Crops, Features, Potatoes

Watch for wireworms in potatoes

If wireworm is not on Prairie potato growers' radar yet, it will be in the near future

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According to Bob Vernon, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Agassiz, B.C., since the organophochlorine pesticide Lindane was banned in Canada in 2004, followed by the organophosphate insecticide Thimet last year, populations of wireworm have been slowing in some areas and “booming” in others. Vernon was in Brandon, Man., to present a […] Read more
The striped flea beetle is becoming more predominant on the Prairies.
Crops, Features

Protect your profits from flea beetles

Insect Management: In a warm dry summer growing season, flea beetles could have a chance to thrive

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If you’re growing canola or mustard this year (or garden vegetables like broccoli or cauliflower) you might need to be concerned about the flea beetle, says Scott Hartley, provincial insect/vertebrate pest management specialist for Sask­atchewan. Climate conditions matter, though, when it comes to certain pests, and the flea beetle is no different. “If it’s going […] Read more

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