AUGUST 2018 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC Armyworm posing little risk this season


Insect ravaged Island, coastal forage crops last year


by SEAN HITREC PORT ALBERNI –


Researchers continue to look for answers to last year’s unusual armyworm outbreak on Vancouver Island and in the Fraser Valley while affected farmers remain vigilant against the pest. Seemingly out of nowhere,


the very hungry caterpillars started chowing down on forage crops across southwestern BC last summer. In its moth form, true armyworm (Mythimna unipuncta) reportedly drifted north from the US in historically large numbers. The larvae devastated healthy grass and corn crops while experts scrambled to find out what was going on. After a year, the threat seems to have died down and research into the phenomenon has begun. “What we think is happening is that the growing conditions are really good in Northern California [an area that hosts the insect year-round] where they've had more rain over the last handful of years following a long drought,” says Tracy Hueppelsheuser, an entomologist with the plant health unit of the BC Ministry of Agriculture. “That means there's lots of adult [moths] present to blow on the winds to new locations.” The resulting damage to


grass and corn varied across affected areas. “I know that some fields


were 100% write-offs and I know that other fields had a much lower percentage of impact,” she says. Hueppelsheuser has continued to monitor insect traps in the affected areas. She’s determined they likely did not survive the winter because the traps were empty from December until this spring. Armyworm are not able to diapause – or rest – when the temperature gets colder. This limits their ability to overwinter, and the empty traps indicate the population died out.


When armyworm moths


did show up this year in late spring, Hueppelsheuser says the numbers were too low to cause alarm. Not much is known about their migrations to BC other than they seem to drift up here from time to time on wind currents. “When we went back and


looked at museum records, there were moths in the museum collections over the


7


Terry Shannon has every reason to smile. The swathe of destruction by armyworms in the Alberni Valley last year has not repeated itself this season but farmers are being advised to continue monitoring their forage crops for potential reinfestations. BOB COLLINS PHOTO


last hundred or so years. That shows the moth does come up here sometimes,” she says. “It doesn't usually show up in great numbers, so it's not that it's new to British Columbia, it's just we've never seen so many that anyone can recall.” While the insect has more than one generation per growing season in BC, she says the population is low enough that the first


generation this year is no cause for alarm.


“Based on trap catches, it


looks like the first generation is very low and we shouldn't be having problems,” she says. “[But] there's a second generation and we'll be wanting to watch for flight this August.”


The second generation


started to damage crops in the middle of August last


year, so she urges farmers to continue to keep their eyes open.


Alberni recovering Meanwhile, farmers in the


Alberni Valley are still recovering from the march of the armyworm last summer. The loss of forage caused some to cull their herds, while others had to import feed from off-island sources.


George Haack has been farming the valley since 1969 and normally has enough hay to sell on the side after feeding his beef cattle. He said he lost around 500 round bales in total last year. “They didn't do mine until


third cut in September,” he says. “Basically, all of the sudden the grass was


See ARMYWORM on next page o


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