Pest Control


The main pests that require outside assistance are beavers and coyotes. The approach taken is to offer assistance via workshops and hands-on training in addition to providing awareness and educational materials in management and prevention.
 
Pest Control

Grasshoppers

Extension staff  conduct annual grasshopper surveys with 84 fields surveyed in 2018. The information is provided to the province to help with predicting grasshopper issues in the future. 

Club Root

Clubroot surveillance and inspection has been elevated for the past four years even though annual crops in Clearwater County are a small portion of the agricultural use of all deeded land. All canola fields known to Agriculture and Community Services are inspected. 72 fields were inspected in 2013, 81 in 2014, 119 in 2015, 102 in 2016, 44 in 2017 and 115 in 2018. 

The first confirmation of clubroot in Clearwater County was discovered in 2014. Two fields were identified as clubroot positive. They were not in close proximity to each other nor was there any sharing of equipment or resources. 
In 2015 10 new fields were identified and links were established in many of the fields between landowners and equipment. In 2016 only 2 new fields were found and testing indicated a very low infestation rate. 

Due to a delayed harvest and some unharvested crops in the fall of 2016, coupled with a wet spring  in 2017, there was a 50 percent reduction in fields planted to canola. Consequently, there were just 44 fields examined with 2 positive results from the samples sent away. Of 115 fields sampled in 2018, 3 tested positive for clubroot. 

Richardson Ground Squirrel aka. Gopher
 
Click Here for more information on control methods for gophers