Reading Time: 6 minutes Insects are like the commodity markets. It’s really easy to know what they’re going to do, once they’ve already done it. One of agriculture’s big challenges is dealing with different insects in different geographies, and doing the best you can to hedge your bets. Like the markets, however, insects are subject to a fair bit […] Read more
Insect post mortem
Top Prairie pest specialists reflect on 2014’s major insect trends… and what they could mean for the coming year
Pest Patrol
A handy acronym can help you remember what gets added during tank mixing
Reading Time: < 1 minute What is the proper order for tank mixing pesticides? If a tank mix is listed on a pesticide label, there will be specific mixing instructions. However, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) does permit the application of unlabelled tank mixtures if the pesticides are registered on the target crop and are being applied within their […] Read more
Hard wired
Several factors are encouraging the return of an old pest enemy — the wireworm group — that had long been a thing of the past for Canadian farmers
Reading Time: 5 minutes They live quietly in your fields for as long as two or three seasons, silently but slowly damaging your crops and undermining your farm’s profitability. Their top hosts are grassy crops such as corn, but they’ve even been known to feed on potatoes, scarring the tubers with long feeding holes. Wireworms damage grassy plants in […] Read more
Crossing the threshold
Nobody likes to see hungry insects in their field — but spraying in the absence of an economic rationale is bad economics and agronomics
Reading Time: 5 minutes Farmers and insects have always had a complex relationship and it hasn’t become any simpler with modern chemistry. There’s no doubt that a lethal application of an insecticide can do wonders for crop production if it’s needed and timely. But it’s a waste of good money if it isn’t. Every year farmers have to make […] Read more
It isn’t here… yet
Will Bt-resistant corn rootworm cross the border into Canada?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Growers in the western U.S. Corn Belt have a real fight on their hands, and they know it. Corn rootworm is showing resistance to Bt hybrids. From Illinois across to South Dakota and down into Kansas, the Cry3Bb1 protein that is the foundation of some Bt genetics is under threat. Researchers now say that pyramiding […] Read more
Profit thieves
A persistent and insidious crop pest could be chewing away at your profits year after year
Reading Time: 3 minutes What’s three-quarters of an inch long, hard-bodied, yellowish brown, lives in the soil, and may be secretly chewing away at your profits? Wireworms… even their name is descriptive. Wireworms are the larval stage of the adult click beetle, and while the beetles do no damage, the same can’t be said about their offspring. The click […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
