What to keep in mind now that trap reports are coming in and garnering a fair amount of attention.
“Some agrologists and producers have been asking for bertha armyworm traps and lures to do their own trapping,” says Scott Meers, insect management specialist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry.
“It is too late to put up new traps now because we would be half way through the monitoring period before they could be sent out and placed in the field.”
Meers says that traps do a great job of indicating the general risk in an area but a poor job of indicating the risk in an individual field.
“For that reason, we do not encourage the use of traps to determine the risk field by field. We have had situations where the traps were high and there were high levels of larvae in the area but the trap field was not badly infested.”
The bertha armyworm traps give an assessment for an area. Each field must be checked and assessed separately to determine if control measures are warranted.
Bertha armyworm results are posted here. The map can be zoomed in. Each point is interactive and includes the catch total and week-by-week counts.
Meers strongly recommends that once the cumulative count reaches 300 moths, scouting should start in late July and progress through early August.
“We really appreciate the support of the industry in helping develop a very good coverage of bertha armyworm moth pheromone traps across Alberta this year,” he adds. “We welcome any new cooperators for the 2020 monitoring season.”
For timely and accurate insect management information and resources, go to the Alberta Insect Pest Monitoring Network.
Source: Alberta Ag
