JULY 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
Precautions taken against Japanese Beetle Threat to Richmond, Fraser Valley crops significant
by PETER MITHAM RICHMOND – The pieces are in place to protect
Fraser Valley growers should the Japanese beetle hitch a ride outside downtown Vancouver. The invasive pest, native to Japan and first identified in Canada in 1939, is an increasing problem for Ontario tender fruit growers. Regular monitoring discovered it around False Creek in Vancouver last summer, raising alarm among BC Landscape and Nursery Association members. While occasional infestations of the pest aren’t unknown on the West Coast, eradication involves pesticides – never politically correct – and significant costs. The discovery last summer saw a total of 1,100 traps placed in a grid pattern across Vancouver and surrounding municipalities to determine the extent and scale of the infestation. Approximately 90% of bugs apprehended were caught in David Lam Park, prompting the imposition of a control area extending from Burrard Street west to Clark Drive, and south from Burrard Inlet to 12th Avenue. This summer 1,500 traps will be set from Whistler to Hope, with a focus on municipalities outside the Vancouver core. “[We’re] setting more traps in 2018 to monitor for Japanese beetle both in areas where it has been found and in areas like the Fraser Valley and municipalities bordering Vancouver that are at risk of getting Japanese beetle,” explains Shannon Derksen, operations specialist at the response centre the Canadian Food Inspection Agency opened to manage the infestation. “Having this enhanced monitoring grid of traps will enable early detection and rapid response by all partners working to eradicate Japanese beetle from BC.” The expanded monitoring supports eradication efforts in the core, in part by demonstrating that
control efforts are working. While pesticide applications last month targeted the pest’s larvae, CFIA has been addressing movement of fill and plant material to ensure the pest doesn’t leave the regulated area. By mid-June, approximately 50 movement certificates had been issued for the movement of potentially hazardous material. “We feel that these new restrictions on plant material and soil are going to be a big step towards containment,” Derksen said. “The human- assisted movement of Japanese beetle is one of the main ways that it spreads, and so the regulated area in Vancouver is designed to create containment, prevent spread, and support the overall eradication.”
Should bugs hitch a ride out of the containment
zone, whether by accident or the transport of non- certified materials, the pest could cause damage of economic significance. The pest feeds on more than 300 plant species, including berries, tree fruits and grapes, as well as hops and nursery stock including sod. A decade ago, Oregon estimated the potential economic impact of the bug at US$34 million a year, or about 1.7% of the value of affected activities. Derksen hopes stakeholders will be responsible and not facilitate the bug’s spread, however. “There will definitely be follow-up; there’ll be monitoring to make sure people are not bringing regulated articles to places outside the regulated area without a movement certificate,” she says. “We are identifying places that are receiving this material … provided people aren’t dumping it in a ditch somewhere, of course. That would be a challenge to follow-up on, and it would be more complaint-
driven.”
Unregulated fill activities
are a major concern around
the Lower Mainland.
Richmond was concerned enough to hire a full-time soils inspector in 2016. Last year, the inspector fielded
66 complaints. In the first four months of
this year, 35 calls were received. Japanese beetle underscores the importance of
enforcing rules governing fill, but Martin Collins, director of policy and planning with the Agricultural Land Commission, says topsoil isn’t an issue when it comes to illegal fill. Deeper, mineral soils surface more frequently in complaints, but the focus of most enforcement actions is general construction waste such as wood and concrete. Derksen is optimistic that awareness and containment efforts will work. And, if they don’t, connections are in place that will facilitate a prompt response. “We have done outreach with some of those
grower associations,” says Derksen, noting that there have also been regular meetings with the Invasive Species Council of BC, which has been instrumental in bringing farm groups into the loop. “The capability to reach out if Japanese beetle was found is there.”
Should a beetle be found in a Richmond
blueberry field this summer, Derksen says stakeholder groups would meet to review data including the location and extent of the occurrence. Control measures would take into account the state of the crop, the beetle’s own lifecycle and the risk to adjacent areas.
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