JULY 2019 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC


Armyworm comes back for


a second helping Entomologists working to understand the pest


by JACKIE PEARASE


SPALLUMCHEEN—“It’s like something out of an old Hitchcock movie.” Blue Mountain Nursery Co.


Ltd. owner Don Morris doesn’t know what else to say about the countless black caterpillars crawling across the parking lot toward his livelihood on Pleasant Valley Road in Spallumcheen. An outbreak of the Western


yellowstriped armyworm (Spodoptera praefica) in the communities of Enderby, Armstrong and Spallumcheen for the second consecutive year has farmers frustrated and the BC Ministry of Agriculture working hard to understand the origin and habits of the pest. The worms invaded Blue


Mountain for the first time this year after adjacent farmers cut their alfalfa in early June. They cleaned out the nursery’s vegetable garden and quickly moved toward greenhouses filled with ornamentals. Blue Mountain also has a field of seedlings at the mercy of the worms. “It’s scary, really scary. If they come out earlier next year, they’ll wipe us out,” says Debbie Morris. BC Ministry of Agriculture entomologist Susanna Acheampong says pheromone traps were put up in the first week of May at about 10 farms affected in 2018. This year, the first report of the tiny caterpillars came from Armstrong on May 11. The reports escalated by the end of the month. “We went to one farm the


previous week and there were none,” says Acheampong. “We go the following week and everything on the farm was covered.” Enderby farmer Paul


Eichinger faced off against the armyworm in July 2018 and again in the fall. “It happened again into September, early October where the volunteer grain sprouted after harvest; they just went in and levelled all that off,” he says. “Right now they’re in the alfalfa, any broad-leaf plant like rhubarb, burdock, anything with a lot of moisture in it, they’ll just reduce it to fly screen.” The worm’s indiscriminate appetite includes forage crops, vegetables,


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ornamentals and weeds, including weeds like pigweed, lamb’s quarter and even Canada thistle. It has devoured one


farmer’s asparagus crop and been spotted on scentless chamomile and wild lupine, both important to bees. “They’re destroying the lupines and that’s not good. That’s a bit concerning to say the least,” says Acheampong. While this year’s outbreak is generally in the same area as last year’s, it’s not necessarily showing up on the same farms. “There was one farm last


year that they got a lot. This year, we haven’t seen any there,” she says. “But then you cross the road to his neighbour and there’s hundreds.”


She is unsure if the pest is


overwintering and where it comes from. The worm is native to North America, and last year she suggested the species might have arrived in the north Okanagan on air currents. However, it was also identified in Cranbrook in 2007 and Okanagan Falls in 2009.


17


Blue Mountain Nursery’s Debbie and Don Morris say it’s been a battle trying to keep an outbreak of Western yellowstriped armyworm from infiltrating their greenhouses this spring. [JACKIE PEARASE PHOTO]


“There’s a lot of


unanswered questions about this pest. We don’t know enough to make any conclusions,” she says. The ministry is sending


captured moths to Western University in Ontario to determine the origins of this year’s population. “This year we are trying to get as much information as possible and then, hopefully we have better recommendations based on local information,” Acheampong adds. Using information from


California and Oregon, the ministry developed a factsheet for farmers outlining cultural, biological and chemical controls for the Western yellowstriped armyworm. But Acheampong readily admits the pest is proving difficult to eradicate. “They can be really, really


bad. It’s not a good pest. And it’s really, really a bad situation for our farmers,” she says. “Because they move in these huge numbers … one day they are not there, the next minute they are there. So that


becomes very, very difficult to control.” With at least two more hatchings expected before the end of summer, Acheampong is keeping farmers updated and tracking sightings of the worms and moths.


The ministry is also advising


affected farmers with production insurance policies to remit a notice of loss immediately. AgriStability payments may be triggered for declines in whole farm income. This year’s deadline to register for AgriStability is July 2.


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