Nationwide monitoring pilot project for European corn borer

Jun 10, 2021

The European corn borer (ECB; Ostrinia nubilalis), has been an important pest of corn and other crops in eastern Canada for nearly a century now but is also known to be a sporadic pest in western Canada. Despite its name, ECB is actually a generalist feeder, having a wide range of hosts. Although corn is one of its preferred hosts, after decades of Bt corn use across Canada, ECB populations were significantly reduced. Successful control in corn may have led to a shift in ECB populations towards its other non-corn hosts.

Most of the collective knowledge on ECB however, has been from its history in corn and can be found here: https://cornpest.ca/corn-pests/european-corn-borer/. Corn is also not completely safe from harm. The recent confirmation of ECB resistance to Cry1F Bt corn in Nova Scotia has increased the need to monitor this pest across Canada. With so many new emerging crops being grown in Canada that are also hosts for ECB (eg. hemp, cannabis, quinoa, hops, millet and others) there is no better time for us to look at this pest across the Canadian ag landscape.

To monitor for ECB nationwide, the Surveillance Working Group of the Canadian Plant Health Council has developed a harmonized monitoring protocol for European corn borer in both English and French. The protocol can be used to report ECB eggs, larvae or damage in any host crop across Canada. This harmonized protocol has been designed to complement protocols that are already in use to make management decisions in order to generate data to compare ECB presence across all of Canada and across host crops.

Click here to see more...

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.