Saskatchewan Insect Update

Dec 09, 2019

It was a tough year for Canola producers given the marketing situation with one of our biggest customers China.

James Tansey is the Provincial Insect Specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture and says there was some good news for producers when it came to insect issues this year.

“Low populations of diamondback moth, low populations of bertha armyworm, apparently low populations of lygus bugs in Faba. Cabbage seedpod weevil and pea leaf weevil numbers were also very low this past year.”

He notes we saw a pretty heavy grasshopper infestation in some areas.

“In the Kindersley area, we saw some pretty heavy infestations around 20 per square meter. So, for a lot of crops, the less sensitive crops we're talking about thresholds of 10 to 12 per square meter; for the more sensitive crops like flax and lentil, we're looking at 2 per square meter. So, at 20 per square meter we're well over that. We also have another little hot spot in the southeast, and these were running around 10 per square meter.”

He says cutworms and red bug posed some problems while flea beetles caused a lot of damage for producers this spring.

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