One strategy to battle an expected plague of grasshoppers this spring is pure poultry in motion.
Truly, chickens would be outstanding in the field.
"It sounds silly, but it's not," said Alberta Agriculture pest expert John Calpas. "Chickens eat grasshoppers."
As previously reported by The Sun, the biggest plague of locusts in decades is possible, even forecast, for areas around Edmonton this spring.
In the past during such outbreaks here, during the Great Depression, farmers used turkeys, Calpas said.
It's not an eggs-aggeration.
Farm size is key. Poultry that can be penned in a chicken-run along a fenceline can protect the crop behind them. The grasshopper eggs are on the borders of cultivated fields.
"They hatch, they go for the field and they get eaten."
And what a harvest.
"Well-fed chickens and turkeys - and your crop."
It may be one of the few acceptable strategies for some farmers. "If it turns out to be as bad as it could be, for some organic farms, the only other thing they could do is throw their arms in the air," Calpas said.
Alberta Agriculture has its best solutions on its widely acclaimed Web site. Baiting and trapping the locusts on bigger fields is another suggestion. However, if you think farming is a no-brainer, this will change that misconception:
"Plow a strip to bare dirt around the outside of the field,'' Calpas said: "Past that, plant a strip of crop that grows faster than your harvest crop. That's the trap crop.
"Then plow another strip to bare dirt, and plant your real crop past that."
The hoppers hatch, move into the trap strip to eat and stay because it's an island of food.
"Then you zap them in that trap strip."
It's a lot more intricate, of course. The trap crop has to be growing when the hoppers come, the harvest crop should not be growing yet, or growing very much, and must be something costly insecticide can safely and effectively dust.
Spraying entire fields for grasshoppers, Alberta Agriculture says, is the most unpalatable, expensive - at $13 an acre - and possibly least effective option there is.
 |
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
|
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
|
