Manitoba Agriculture & Resource Development has been on the road this winter talking about which insects to watch for during the 2020 growing season.
Entomologist John Gavloski gave his forecast for grasshoppers.
"Levels have gone up in the last two years. Going into 2020, we're advising just to get out there in June, scout your ditches, your areas outside the field where grasshoppers may overwinter, pasture lands. Levels have been increasing, whether they continue to increase or not, depends on weather and natural enemies."
He also discussed cutworms.
"Populations have been increasing. The way cutworms cycles usually work is we get three or four really bad years and usually populations after that start tapering off and that's often driven by natural enemies. So, I'm hoping we've peaked."
Flea beetles were also talked about.
"We had very heavy populations last year, there's really not a great way to monitor and accurately forecast what will happen in the next year but what we usually advise farmers and agronomists to do is consider what was present in August and September when you were harvesting your crop."
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