This winter just might bug some insects

TO SURVIVE THE PAST week’s weather, we’ve needed a boat and a sump pump more than an ice pick and a bag of driveway salt.

But despite the recent rain and mild temperatures, few of us will forget what a brutal, chronically cold winter we’re emerging from.

For farmers, however, there may be a silver lining to the biting cold we experienced.

It seems the same temperatures that made our teeth chatter might also have sent a fatal chill through the bodies of certain insects that normally give crop producers in our area a hard time – flea beetles, bean leaf beetles and slugs among them.

These insects overwinter in shallower soil than most others, says Dale Cowan, senior agronomist with the Wanstead and AGRIS co-ops in southwestern Ontario.

That means they might succumb more readily to the persistently low winter temperatures.

Many agricultural pests such as wire worms and grubs are instinctive enough to beat a deep frost. But the species that

stay comparatively shallow could be vulnerable to the exceptional cold experienced this winter in many parts of Canada.

“We never get the full cleansing effect we want, and because it’s minus20C in the air doesn’t mean it’s that cold in the soil,” cautions Cowan. “But this winter could possibly reduce the presence of some of these insects in the spring.”

Insect pressure depends on several factors, including weather from afar. For example, army worms can be blown up from the Ohio Valley. That’s a force of nature and can’t be prevented or influenced by winter weather here.

So Cowan says the best thing for farmers – and gardeners – to do is scout.

That means getting into your fields and gardens and looking closely, or “scouting,” for bugs. Spotting insects as soon as possible in the spring means you can initiate control measures of your choice, where necessary. Scouting will tell you whether the infestation is bad enough to warrant control measures.

If it is, you need to reduce that population, if you’re going to produce something that yields meaningful quantities of vegetables and fruit.

Dramatically low winter temperatures might also slow soil warming. For example, if ice stays on the Great Lakes longer than usual, Ontario could be in for a cool spring. That means low soil temperatures.

And that’s important for farmers to keep an eye on. Planting into cooler soil can inhibit seed development and germination.

The flipside is that waiting too long to plant reduces yields. Delayed planting means crops don’t get off to the kind of start that lets them take full advantage of soil moisture and heat, when the weather finally warms up.

Cowan says that while it’s still early, farmers need to start making management plans to get onto the land as early as possible. Weather patterns over the past three springs have been unpredictable. Typically, there’s been an opportune two-week planting window of warm, dry weather – which is hard to believe, given conditions we’re seeing now – followed by rain and low temperatures that have made planting grind to a halt.

“Farmers who were ready to plant and on their fields early typically are prepared to manage for those risks with timely field observations,” says Cowan.

He says his co-ops are already “very heavy” into crop planning by field, crop and service, and urges producers to start planning early.

“Stay flexible in the spring,” says Cowan. “The window for planting is very narrow, and management depends on what the weather gives us. We need to be agile.”