October 20, 2024 • 36 mins
“That price gap's a hurdle for a lot of farmers. I feel that I've probably got other farmers that would, but the majority of them would not be keen to spend that amount of money compared to what they could be doing with Trojan.
“Most farmers will want to see an economical return from that long term. And because we need that from every aspect of farming.
“Farming is a money-making venture. We're not doing it as a hobby.
“As Paul suggested, I think probably just picking a paddock at a time is a good strategy. I've run into more issues where people want to go all IPM instantly. That's presented issues, just getting around the farm, monitoring and making sure we don't get any chronic outbreaks.
“You'll see the value, I suppose, from using products like Vandecor.
“You should only have to do one of them [spray] where, in a long spring where, Heliothis or Etiola come in early, you may be doing two Trojans.
“It's worked well actually.” Wimmera agronomist Tim Pohlner.
“IPM isn't just doing nothing. IPM involves the three control options. And there is nothing else. All the control has to come out of one of those three tools.
“The advice that I give to people, if it doesn't work, then that's of no value to anyone. So, if there's pests there, you have to control them. It's just how you choose to use it. Which products you choose, whether it's cultural or whether it's a pesticide.
“There's no advantage to anyone in watching insects and other pests destroy their crop.
“All IPM is, is trying to use things in the best possible way so they work together.” Entomologist Dr Paul Horne
The third episode of our series Planning for Prosperity, sponsored by Action Steel, highlights that while planning is crucial in farming, so too is flexibility. That using Integrated Pest Management in broadacre farming isn't black and white, all or nothing.
Take a listen and decide for yourself whether you might begin to introduce IPM at your place.
The conversation covers what is IPM, how to apply it in a broadacre setting, beneficial versus pests, the cost of applying broad spectrum insecticides versus selective including price, impact on beneficials, resistance buildup, marketing options, and time spent spraying. Monitoring was also discussed and the amount of time required both at the start of implementation and throughout the season.
With slugs causing severe establishment damage, particularly in the Wimmera, monitoring and control were also discussed with BCG’s Casey Sim explaining BCG’s current Optimising Slug Management project with SARDI.
This podcast is sponsored by Action Steel. Visit https://www.actionsteel.com.au/ today
For more information on chemical storage visit: https://www.actionsteel.com.au/downloads/standard-chemical-sheds-brochure-size-price-guide/
About Dr Paul Horne
Dr Paul Horne is an entomologist and since 1996 has been owner and director of IPM Technologies Pty Ltd, based in Hurstbridge, Victoria, Australia.
His work on IPM in a range of crops has taken him to different places including Yemen, Thailand, Spain, Denmark, Indonesia, New Zealand and
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:00):
This episode is sponsored by Action. Steel highlights that while
planning is crucial in farming, so too is flexibility. But
using integrated pest management in Broad Acre farming isn't black
and white all or nothing? Take a listen and decide
for yourself whether you might begin to introduce IPM at
your place.
S2 (00:24):
That price gap is a hurdle for a lot of farmers.
I feel that I've probably got other farmers that would,
but the majority of them would not be keen to
spend that amount of money compared to what they could
be doing with Trojan. Most farmers will want to see
a economical return from that long term. And because we
need that from every aspect of farming. Farming is a
(00:45):
it's a money making venture. We're not doing it as
a hobby, probably, as Paul suggested, I think probably just
picking a paddock at a time is probably a good strategy.
I've probably run into more issues where people want to
go all IPM instantly. That's presented issues just getting around
the farm, monitoring and making sure we don't get any
chronic outbreaks. You'll see the value, I suppose, from using
products like van der core. You should only have to
(01:08):
do one of them. Where in a long spring where
heliothis or etiella come in early, you may be doing
two Trojans. So it's worked well actually. So.
S1 (01:21):
Hello and welcome back to Shared Solutions by BCG. I'm
Janine Batters in the third episode of our series planning
for prosperity. I'm going to be speaking with lots of
people about integrated pest management entomologist doctor Paul Horn, Wimmera
agronomist Tim Corona and Bcg's Casey SIM. I thought I
might introduce you. Paul has a wealth of experience in IPM.
(01:42):
He has worked in IPM in a range of crops
in different places including Yemen, Thailand, Spain, Denmark, the list
goes on. He has written books. He's done it all.
Tim is a Willmar agronomist. He has been working with
farmers across the region for over 14 years. He is
highly respected and also has investigated at IPM and work
with farmers wanting to implement IPM. Also Bcg's Casey SIM,
(02:04):
who is our resident insect specialist. So I'm really looking
forward to having all your insights today on IPM. So
for a start, I thought we might talk. What is
IPM pole?
S3 (02:15):
IPM is is really a very simple thing to me.
There's only three ways you can control pests in any
crop and that's using pesticides. Of course that's one option
biological control, which are the insects and mites that eat
the pest insects and mites. That's the second one. And
cultural controls things that are probably done for other reasons,
(02:37):
like stubble retention or tillage. They're things that impact either
the pests or the beneficials. So all IPM is, is
trying to use as many of those options as you
can in a compatible way. So obviously, if you're going
to spray a pesticide, if there's a choice between things
that will kill the pest and not kill Beneficials, then
(03:01):
that's a better option than a spray that will kill
the beneficials. And then you're reduced to relying on just pesticides.
So IPM isn't a complex thing at all. It's really
just trying to use a set of compatible control options. Okay.
S1 (03:17):
And how do you implement IPM in a broad acre sense?
S3 (03:21):
In Broad Acre, we probably separate the set of pests
into establishment pests and those that fly in later. So
the establishment pests are usually not always, but usually things
that are resident. They live in the paddock all year round.
So things like red legged earth mite, Lucerne, flea slugs, snails,
(03:46):
they're all there. And so managing those resident pests in
most cases involves looking after resident beneficials. The first thing
to do is to try and get the habitat right
for beneficial species. That can be quite straightforward. It can
be just stubble retention. Minimum tillage has favoured beneficials greatly.
(04:11):
It can also favour some pests. And so that's where
the other options come in. And so the choice of
which pesticides you use and how you use it is
going to allow you to control the pests and still
keep the beneficials. But if you choose the wrong one,
then you might control the pests, but then you lose
(04:32):
the beneficials and therefore you've got ongoing problems.
S1 (04:35):
Okay, so what I'm hearing is it's not an organic
approach where you just say, I'm not going to spray anything.
It's using a combination of biological and chemical.
S3 (04:45):
Both conventional and organic farmers have the same set of pests.
Both have the same set of beneficials. Both have the
same set of cultural options in which they can manipulate,
Pest and beneficial populations. The difference is organic farmers don't
have synthetic chemicals, so that means they're more usually more
(05:08):
likely to apply some of the cultural controls that take
a bit more effort than simply putting on an insecticide.
Organic IPM isn't organic, but organic farmers can use IPM,
so conventional farmers have an easier option with IPM because
they have a greater selection of pesticides to choose from.
(05:31):
Some are disruptive to beneficials, others are not disruptive. And
also the formulation, if it's a seed dressing or a
bait that's even with the same active ingredient, that might
be broad spectrum. You can formulate the sides so that
they impact the pests but don't disrupt beneficials.
S1 (05:51):
Okay, so it sounds really good in theory. Paul, how
do I implement IPM PM.
S4 (05:57):
On my.
S1 (05:58):
Farm. So we grow legumes, wheat, barley, canola, vetch. Where
do I start? What do I do?
S3 (06:06):
I mentioned we divide the set of pests into two.
So the first thing is to work out what set
of pests you have to deal with. So there's the
establishment pests, and there's those that fly in later like
aphids and heliothis, things like that. So the resident beneficial
species that you want are going to take time to
(06:26):
build up. But the beneficial species that eat aphids and heliothis,
things like that, they come in every year no matter what.
So if you've got a rotation that involves things like canola,
are much more vulnerable to establishment pests than things like cereals.
So the usual suggestion is people pick a paddock, start
(06:48):
with the cereals because they're not going to be so
sensitive to the pest damage at the establishment. You see
dressings to get the crop through, use baits instead of
bare earth sprays. Basically, look at what options there are
in terms of pesticides, for the aphids and for the
(07:09):
caterpillars that are not going to disrupt the biological control
agents that will be in the paddock, and you want
to keep them for controlling loose end flea and red
legged earth mite. I would pick a paddock, start with
the cereals, and usually it takes 2 to 3 years
before a population in that paddock will build up to
(07:32):
have a really significant impact on things like red legged
earth mite and Lucerne flea. It's about looking at what
pests you've got, how do you control them, what are
the choices? And steer away from the broad spectrum insecticides?
S1 (07:46):
If I'm only doing one paddock, one, I'm worried that
all the pests from the next paddock are going to
come in. And I'm also worried about the pests in
my neighbour's paddock. So it's just one paddock. Aren't they
all just going to come in from every side?
S3 (07:59):
So the establishment pests, things like red legged earth mite,
they will move in from an edge, but they're not
going to move vast distances. So there's an edge effect
and you can use border treatments if that is a concern.
And the things like aphids and heliothis and other caterpillars,
they fly in from hundreds of kilometres away anyway, so
(08:22):
it's actually not a problem. You can do it on
a paddock. And all I'm suggesting that for is you
don't have to switch the farm over to something that
might seem very different and a potentially quite scary you
can do it paddock by paddock, and after you've done
a few paddocks, then all of a sudden you've got
(08:43):
more paddocks full of beneficials than those that don't.
S1 (08:47):
Okay, so I'm going to cross to Tim now because
I did have another question, but I thought I think
Tim might have some good insight into this. So Tim
was involved with you, worked with you and Tim on
a paddock that BCG was involved with a couple of
years ago, implementing and working through an IPM strategy for
Broad Acre. Tim, how did you go about implementing the strategy,
starting with cereals, doing the seed treatments and the baits?
S2 (09:12):
Yeah, so in a way, you probably implemented everything that
Paul just said, really. We've stopped using broad spectrum insecticides
on those paddocks. We've been using them to cloak fruit
as a seed, dressing in the cereals and in the
pulse side of things. Probably our major problems being slugs
through the last three years. This year they haven't been
(09:32):
quite as bad, but they've still been present in lentils.
But it has worked. We've got canola in there this
year and we've got away with having any major damage.
We did bait for slugs, but that's been the extent
of insect damage.
S1 (09:47):
What year are you in of working on IPM in
this paddock?
S2 (09:51):
I think we're the third, I'm pretty sure.
S1 (09:54):
Okay. And so you started off with cereals? Yep. And
then you moved on to legumes.
S2 (09:59):
And then.
S1 (10:00):
Canola. How did you go with the canola team? Yeah.
S2 (10:02):
It hasn't been too bad, really. We have bad at slugs,
but that's it. And batted only once, which is good.
S1 (10:09):
Okay. And what are some of the things, Tim, that
have been difficult about implementing IPM on this paddock?
S2 (10:15):
I don't think there's one paddocks been too bad, probably,
as Paul suggested. I think probably just picking a paddock
at a time is probably a good strategy. I've probably
run into more issues where people want to go all
IPM instantly. That's presented issues just getting around the farm,
monitoring and making sure we don't get any chronic outbreaks
of damage from any sort of insect that's popped up.
(10:36):
It's worked well, actually. So we've started spraying. Probably the
main prophylactic insecticide we've been using has been an SP
controlling caterpillars in our legumes. So we have. Tim's shifted
to Manticore, which is a caterpillar specific insecticide. And yeah,
he has moved to do that over his entire farm now,
(10:56):
which is great. I think we'll see. Tim will try
and expand that process into more of his paddocks rather
than just the one.
S1 (11:02):
And you've seen that to work.
S2 (11:03):
It has. Yeah. As I said, we've we've lost crop
but it's more been from slugs. And what he's experienced
hasn't been any different to anyone else in the region.
The slugs have really come out of left field and
caused a lot of damage that we wouldn't have expected
five years ago.
S1 (11:18):
Okay, talking about slugs, that might be a nice little segue.
So Bcg's Casey SIM, she's doing a project on slugs
at the moment. Casey, are you able to tell our
listeners or let our listeners know, what are you seeing
in terms of slugs at the moment? Because they have
just been I know on our farm they've just been
an absolute headache. Yeah.
S5 (11:36):
So we're monitoring the slug populations in six different paddocks
around Horsham, including Tim's IPM paddock that they mentioned before.
It sounds like relative to previous years, slug numbers are
a lot lower this year, probably due to the drier conditions.
S6 (11:53):
So earlier in the year.
S5 (11:54):
We were seeing a lot more striped slugs around the area.
And these slugs aren't really known to cause much damage
to crops or canola compared to the black yield or
the brown field slugs. In terms of the black yield slugs,
we did see a few of them pop up around
April and May, sort of after that autumn break. So
(12:16):
that's sort of when the soil moisture is sufficient for
them to come up to the surface and breed. So
we would expect to see them around that time of
the year. And we've also seen a few brown field
slugs around, and they typically don't do as much damage
as the black field slugs. But we have seen a
few of those in April, and now we're starting to
(12:38):
see their populations increase now in October.
S1 (12:41):
Okay. Thanks, Casey. Would that be consistent, Tim, with what
you've seen in the paddock?
S2 (12:45):
Yeah, numbers were definitely down, but there was still a
fair bit of damage that sort of happened in July.
Paddocks that were preventively baited at sowing. We must have
got the first generation of slugs because they were a
lot easier to manage. We had a lot more issues
with lentils and canola in general. We didn't bait them
up front and we had to come back and bait
(13:06):
them multiple times afterwards. Some paddocks got up to three baits. Yeah,
they've been a real challenge to be quite honest, so
it doesn't seem to be any great sort of strategy
to get on top of them. Apart from bait, definitely.
Removing stubble and cultivation helped, but given we're farming in
a low to medium rainfall zone, that's not something that
(13:27):
many farmers really want to do. And it showed out
with this dry period we've had at the moment that
long term, no till stubble retention strategies definitely been the
way to grow crop on minimal moisture.
S1 (13:38):
Definitely have seen that this year, haven't we, Tim? I think,
as Paul said, with baiting, that can be part of
an IPM strategy. Paul, do you have anything to add
in terms of slugs? I just know that there's been
so much pain around slugs and it's so expensive to
bait for slugs, particularly when you're baiting 3 or 4 times.
S3 (13:57):
Controlling slugs that all the slugs that we have in
Australia that are pests in agriculture come from overseas. So
they've escaped their specialist natural enemies. So there's things like beetles,
which are the big black predatory beetles. They'll eat them.
But if the slug population is high, then there's no
(14:19):
way that they'll give significant control. If it's a low population,
they'll contribute to control. But a lot of the times
it's much better to use a high rate of bait
early rather than bait three times with low rates. You know,
if I had $10 to spend, I would probably spend
5 or $6 on a first bait and then the
(14:42):
rest on a second really close together, probably two weeks apart,
right around planting. I'd use as much as was possible then,
Because the slugs spend the summer. The ones that survive
the summer are mostly adults, and if you can kill
those adults before they then start breeding, you'll have less
of a problem to deal with later on. And the
(15:05):
other important thing to remember is that slugs are hermaphrodites,
which means that they're both male and female. So it's
not just half the population that's going to give birth
to offspring. The entire population will lay eggs at some point.
And the other thing to remember is they're continuous breeders.
(15:25):
So if there's moisture, they'll keep going. If the theoretical
number of eggs lay is a thousand per individual, two
generations means a thousand times a thousand, that's a million.
So you can go from 1 to 1 million over
the course of a summer. So when people say to us, oh,
these paddocks, you know, we didn't have slugs here last year,
(15:47):
where do they come from? That's where they come from.
They just breed prolifically whenever there's moisture.
S1 (15:54):
Okay, so back to IPM, back to how a farmer
would implement it on their farm. Tim, I wanted to
ask you about the price. So you said Tim is
putting van der core across all his legumes. Now, what
is the price difference? Because I feel like that can
be the point where farmers go, yes or no?
S2 (16:16):
Yes. So Tim is putting van der Kuil over all
of his pulses, lentils and faba beans rather than putting
on Trojan, which most of the area or most. That's
the most common insecticide used for caterpillars in the Wimmera
and van der core I've got here is 30, say
$35 a hectare. Trojans. The higher rates about $5 a hectare.
(16:38):
So it is a big investment to go to van
der core. Caterpillars in pulses I feel, just have to
be controlled. I'm not comfortable leaving him there and not
doing anything about it. Van der core is good. I'm
very happy with that strategy. Just leaving it and hoping
that none come with monitoring. I feel it's very risky
because as soon as we start getting grub damage in
(16:58):
our pulses, they turn it from a high value food
product back to feed. So it could be the difference
between some years. It could be $500 a ton. We
just can't be ignoring that threat in my opinion. Tim
realizes that and that's why he's gone to van. Decker
is hoping that using van der Corps rather than Trojan,
that we will be able to help breed up the
(17:21):
Carabid beetle. That's his big hope, and I hope it
does for him as well. His biggest pest is slugs,
so we're trying to do whatever we can to mitigate
that issue. Long term, I think this dry season will
probably help quite a bit. But yeah, whatever else we
can do will be doing that as well. That price
gap is a hurdle for a lot of farmers. I
(17:41):
feel that I've probably got other farmers that would, but
the majority of them would not be keen to spend
that amount of money compared to what they could be
doing with Trojan. Most farmers will want to see a
economical return from that long term. And because we need
that from every aspect of farming. Farming is a it's
a money making venture. We're not doing it as a hobby,
(18:02):
just a huge price difference really. Yeah. Over 500,000 hectares
of pulses, which probably a lot of my clients run.
It does turn into a fair cost.
S1 (18:13):
Compliant chemical storage sheds are important infrastructure for cropping enterprises,
from a safety point of view and for a sustainability certification.
BCG gold sponsors action the Big Shed people have developed
a range of standard chemical shed designs to help you
meet these requirements. The designs include details such as lock
up storage areas, bonded concrete floors, ventilation and sprayer bays.
(18:36):
Head to action steel. Com.au to learn more about the designs,
sizes and prices. Oh, do you have any thoughts on that?
Because I feel like you would come up against this
every day of the week.
S3 (18:49):
It's one of the most common things we hear from
broadacre farmers that other selective chemicals are priced for horticulture
and not for broadacre. But there's a couple of reasons
that people should consider using a selective product, even if
it is more expensive. And one of them, Tim's, just
explained you can foster the populations of beneficial species, but
(19:11):
the other side is if you've got a pest that
is resistant to those cheap chemicals, then it's not going
to work. All it's going to do is disrupt control
of other things with the, you know, the changing climate.
I'm hearing reports from Broadacre agronomists in South Australia and
western Victoria saying we've sprayed an SP three times and
(19:34):
the caterpillars are still there. And that's because we used
to only get Heliothis punctigera in broad Acre. But now Armigera,
which is resistant to those SPS, it's coming in earlier
in different years. That's a problem. And also like what's
the cost of pest control overall? Like if you're using
(19:56):
broad spectrum insecticides that are killing a whole range of beneficials,
there's a sequence of pests that we see develop. And
so it starts off with things like red legged earth mite.
And if you kill those with a broad spectrum, that's good,
but you kill the things that eat Lucerne flea. So
then you get Lucerne three problems. So then if you
up the rate because they're tougher to kill, then you
(20:19):
kill the things that eat, pray and balaustium mite. And
so there's a sequence of pest problems which are getting
progressively harder to deal with. So while those cheap products
are around and they work, make sense for people to
do that. But if they don't work and you're inducing problems,
what's the pest control cost over a 5 or 10
(20:43):
year period? You know where you're going in all the time,
harder and harder because these pests are being caused in
a lot of cases by the selection of products. The
final reason might be those cheap products. Even if they
do work and they're certainly available, they're legal to use.
But if you want to export and the country you're
(21:05):
exporting to doesn't want that on the spray list, then
you're going to lose the market.
S1 (21:10):
That makes sense. Paul. Tim, do you have anything to
add to that?
S2 (21:15):
I agree with everything Paul said. I think we'll probably
be forced into more and more IPM strategy. We are
actually losing some of the core prophylactic insecticides like chlorpyrifos,
so we've only got a few years left to use
that now, so it will make us think and try
and work out new strategies. Okay.
S1 (21:34):
And in terms of this paddock that you're working with
Tim and other paddocks that you've worked with, are you
seeing population of beneficials increase like the Carabid beetle?
S2 (21:43):
It's hard for me to say at the moment. I
think we're at three years in. Yes. But yeah, I
can't definitively say yes to that.
S1 (21:51):
How often do you monitor?
S2 (21:53):
Depends what I'm monitoring for. Like I'm through the paddock
a lot, but probably not digging around in the soil
looking for carabid beetle. The paddocks got through historically growing
canola and Horsham. We'd put a litre of chlorpyrifos down
and that was to control those false wireworm. But but
also some of those other establishment pests like millipedes and
(22:13):
slaters and red legged earth mite and loose and flea like.
We haven't seen that the canola had a seed treatment.
The strategy is working, and I'm pretty sure Tim will
adopt it in more paddocks in the future, which would
be great.
S1 (22:25):
Okay, so in terms of this paddock and farmers that
you have worked with, have you found that you've lost
a lot of crop, a lot of profit in the
first couple of years of implementing IPM? Because that that's
what keeps coming back to me. I just feel like
it's an awful feeling for farmers to be seeing all
(22:46):
these insects on that will pass, I should say, on
their crop and not controlling them.
S2 (22:53):
Definitely, yes. I wouldn't say that in the short term.
I've had any clients just say, right, we're going to
IPM this year. IPM has been around for a long
time now. I don't think farmers are going into it
thinking that they just stop using insecticide and magically all
the beneficials will appear and it'll all be rosy. It
(23:14):
may happen like that, but there's a good chance it won't.
There needs to be a strategy around it, and I
think the 3 to 4 year lead into growing canola
is a great approach, the polls said. I've had a
few people that have been in it long term, like
not Tim, and two of them have actually worked with
Paul in the past. One of them, um, he's sort
(23:34):
of near stall and he does a phenomenal job with it.
But I think this run of probably above average rainfall
years other than this year has built up a huge
amount of organic matter or just stubble double loading over
the paddocks. And he's had some real issues the last
couple of years, especially last year. He just felt he
was chasing his tail the whole year. He was spraying
(23:56):
a paddock, thinking it was fine and saying that he
was getting canola eaten by a millipede somewhere, or slaters.
Another not so much red legged earth mite or loose
and flea. I haven't had huge challenges with them. It's
more of those, um, I don't know what. What do
you call that? Those sort of insects. Paul. The millipede
sliders and earwigs.
S3 (24:15):
Millipedes and slaters are not insects. Earwigs are insects. So, yeah,
they're all invertebrate pests. But slaters is a tricky one.
I'm not totally convinced that they do all the damage
that they're blamed for all the time. Sometimes I think
it's where there is a lot of stubble, and it's
easy to find Slaters. Much harder to find things like slugs,
(24:38):
tiny little slugs. But probably one slug would do an
awful lot more damage than 100 slaters. They're all pests
that you have to deal with and it's really important.
I think what you said just before that IPM isn't
just doing nothing. IPM involves the three control options and
there is nothing else. All the control has to come
(25:00):
out of one of those three tools. And the advice
that I give to people, if it doesn't work, then
that's of no value to anyone. If there's pests there,
you have to control them. It's just how you choose
to use it, which products you choose, whether it's cultural
or whether it's a pesticide. Uh, there's no advantage to
(25:21):
anyone in watching insects and other pests destroy their crop.
All IPM is, is trying to use things in the
best possible way so they work together.
S2 (25:32):
I fully agree with you that sliders and millipedes are
getting blamed for slugs all over the place. Really? But
this guy did get out at 1:00 in the morning
two nights in a row, and found them absolutely covering
his canola, canal, which he hadn't seen before. He does
have slugs as well, but that monitoring aspect of IPM
is something that growers, I feel really need to get
(25:55):
their heads around. A lot of these pests are nocturnal,
so you do need to get out. Unfortunately with a
torch at midnight to see what's going on. It's a
commitment by the grower as much as by their agronomist
or advisor to do it properly. If you're not going
to commit to it and do it properly, I think
you are going to end up with some real potential
(26:15):
damage and economical loss.
S1 (26:17):
Both of you are saying that planning is really important,
and to not just sort of go and put your
hands up in the air and say, I'm not touching it.
S3 (26:24):
Yeah, if there's a pest and the crop's getting damaged,
you've got to try your best to control it. I'm
suggesting that where there's a softer option that's worth doing
in the long run, if there's no soft option whatsoever,
then the only choice is to use a broad spectrum insecticide.
But usually that doesn't happen if you're planning ahead. So
(26:47):
the planning ahead can include things like your rotation, which
means planning years ahead, not just when the crops in
the ground. When people ring me up and say, I've
got my canola, it's being eaten by such and such
a pest, what do I do? Usually the answer is
spray it. If you talk to me a few months
(27:08):
ago or last year, we could have worked out a strategy.
The closer you get to the damage being done, the
fewer options you've got.
S2 (27:17):
What sort of damage to the long term viability of IPM?
There's one application of dimethyl eight have. I feel that
the growers at the moment that are invested, they're emotionally
invested in the ideology around it, you know, they really
get worried that one application of Le Mat or dimethyl
eight or chlorpyrifos is going to absolutely crash their system
(27:37):
and they're back to square one. But does that actually happen?
Or can you know, if their clover's getting annihilated by Redlegs.
Can we put 80ml dimethyl eight on it? And we
haven't absolutely destroyed the last three years of IPM work.
S3 (27:51):
It can be really disruptive to things like carabid beetles,
if that's what you want, because there's only one generation
a year for most of those species. If you knock
out a whole generation, you've lost them. Probably they won't
build up again for several years. But the things like
beneficial species that eat aphids and caterpillars, they're going to
(28:12):
come in whatever has been the history of that paddock.
So it's not going to matter at all. But it's disruptive,
but it's not the end of the the world. If
it has to be done, then as long as growers
know this is not a good thing, it's it's not ideal.
But I'm going to do it to save this year's crop.
(28:33):
But after that, I'm going to try and approach it
in a different way. If it's clover, if it's for grazing,
even grazing management has a huge impact on pests and beneficials.
The strategy isn't just spray or not spray, it's putting
the whole lot together. And the cultural controls are often
(28:53):
really underestimated how much they actually can do. But the
short answer to your question is Lima is going to
have or other broad spectrum is going to have a
big impact on some beneficials, but not all of them.
S2 (29:07):
Is there any soft options for mites?
S3 (29:10):
Not for redlegs in horticulture. The things like two spotted mite.
There's a whole range of miticides that are selective. They
will kill the pest mites and not the beneficial mites.
As far as I'm aware, all the testing that's been done,
none of those selective ones are effective on red legged
earth mite. So the seed dressing, as you've mentioned, that's
(29:33):
the safest option because it can control the mites without
disrupting the predatory species.
S1 (29:40):
So going back to what you were saying before you
piqued my interest, Paul, when you said livestock, are they
good or bad for Beneficials?
S3 (29:48):
They can be either, depending on how they're managed. If
you think of a paddock that's really grazed hard and
almost down to the bare earth, there's no habitat left
for beneficial species. So they don't just need food, they
need shelter and a habitat to live in. So grazing
(30:08):
management is a really important part to keep that population
of predators there. On the other hand, if you had
a paddock that's full of slugs and you wanted to
get rid of them quickly, intensive grazing is going to
absolutely get them better than any baiting will because it
removes the food, it removes the shelter, and they get trampled. Yeah.
(30:33):
Are they good or bad? It's it's how they're managed.
S1 (30:36):
That is good to know. I was just thinking about
that and going back to him to what you were
talking about with monitoring.
S7 (30:42):
How?
S1 (30:43):
What would you suggest farmers do to monitor? Because I
can tell you right now, farmers are not going to
be going out every night. They're probably busy doing something
else at 1:00 in the morning. They don't have time
to be checking with their torches every night at 12:00.
What do they do?
S3 (30:58):
So once again, I'll go back to the two sorts
of pests the pests and beneficials. There's the resident ones,
and there's the transient ones that move in and out.
So the resident ones, once you know that you've got
a population of predators, that is really good. You don't
need to keep monitoring for them. You can trust that
they will be there. But the pests that fly in
(31:20):
things like aphids or heliothis or etiella, if it's in
other crops, you can monitor for those with traps, and
it doesn't mean that you have to go out all
the time. It just those traps will tell you when
there's a flight happening, and it'll only be at very
short periods of time through the life of the crop,
(31:42):
But usually when we've worked with farmers and agronomists to
make the change from conventional spraying to using IPM, the
monitoring is really important at first just to show people
this is what we're talking about. But once the confidence
is there that there are things beneficial predators, parasites, they
(32:05):
are there. We know they're there. We know what to
do to encourage them. And then seeing that the control happen,
it's not actually necessary to monitor for all those things
all the time. It's more important to monitor for movement
or flights in of the pests that you're worried about.
S1 (32:24):
Okay, Tim, how do you feel about that?
S2 (32:26):
No, I agree, I think the the slug issue that
we never used to deal with, that's really throwing a
spanner in the works of establishment in the Wimmera. That's
not just for IPM people, that's everyone. It's just I
think it's been a symptom of the better seasons we've had,
and I'm sure the continuous crop are no till. Full
(32:49):
stubble retention systems just been a fantastic habitat for a
lot of problematic species, particularly slugs, but also snails. If
we go into a few dry years, I think the
issue will dissipate. But there has to be a commitment
from the grower that you're going to do some sort
of monitoring. You can't just totally remove yourself from that.
(33:09):
It's your crop, it's not anyone else's, and you're going
to take the economic loss to if something happens astronomically.
So I don't think like when I say you got
to monitor, it's just drive over your paddock and if
something doesn't look right, ring your agronomist. It's um, yeah.
You don't have to identify everything straight away, but if
(33:32):
everything looks fine, I'm sure it is fine. But when
something doesn't look fine, it probably needs more investigation.
S1 (33:38):
And you're saying that across the board. You're not saying
that just in terms of RPM.
S2 (33:42):
Oh heck no. That's some disease. Weeds. Everything. We've had
a big increase in disease too. With the wetter years
as well.
S3 (33:49):
As far as monitoring for those establishment pests, we usually
just use something like tiles down on the ground. They're
just artificial rocks and things like earwigs. Slugs will retreat
under those. And so you'd want to pick a high
risk area in the paddock. And if everything's all right there,
(34:09):
then it's probably all right over a much bigger area.
If things are not good there. Maybe have a look
in a few different points. We would say monitor at
key times. You don't need to monitor all the time.
You don't want it to be so onerous that it
just doesn't get done at all. But at establishment, as
the crop's coming through, you look for establishment pests. Once
(34:32):
it's up, you don't need to do that anymore. Then
you need to monitor for aphids, and then you need
to monitor for caterpillars and flights of moths. So it's
just monitoring at short intervals.
S5 (34:42):
Yeah. So how we've been monitoring floods this year is
we've got these refuge mats that we've soaked in water
to try and make a nice, moist environment for the
slugs to seek refuge in. And with our monitoring, we
do try to check earlier in the morning, within a
few days of a rainfall event, just to make sure
that we're checking sort of when the slugs are more
(35:04):
likely to be active.
S1 (35:06):
Is there anything else that anyone would like to add
that might help our listeners with determining whether they want
to implement IPM or not?
S3 (35:13):
I'd suggest do it before there's a crisis. People often
ring me when there's a crisis, so if you can
make the change trial IPM before there's a crisis, whether
that's resistant pests or the market demanding certain things, that's
different makes sense to do it while you've got some options.
S2 (35:33):
I think just ease into it like we spoke about initially.
Do a few paddocks, get your confidence up. You can
work out how it's going to work. From that point.
You'll see the value, I suppose, from using products like Manticore.
There definitely is other benefits from, say, going back to Manticore.
Like you should only have to do one of them
where in a long spring where heliothis or etiella come
(35:54):
in early, you may be doing two trojans or two
synthetic pyrethroids, which still might be slightly cheaper, but you've
got to go over your whole pulse place twice with
your boom spray.
S1 (36:06):
If you love the podcast and would like to show
your support, please rate us five stars. Wherever you listen
to your podcasts and share it with your friends. We'll
catch you again soon.
S5 (36:16):
BCG drives the prosperity of Australian farmers, communities and landscapes
through applied research, innovation and events. To find out more
about what we're up to, our team and events near you,
visit BCG Gorgo. BCG acknowledges the traditional custodians of country
throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.
(36:37):
We pay our respects to their elders, past and present.
This episode is sponsored by Action. Steel highlights that while
planning is crucial in farming, so too is flexibility. But
using integrated pest management in Broad Acre farming isn't black
and white all or nothing? Take a listen and decide
for yourself whether you might begin to introduce IPM at
your place.
S2 (00:24):
That price gap is a hurdle for a lot of farmers.
I feel that I've probably got other farmers that would,
but the majority of them would not be keen to
spend that amount of money compared to what they could
be doing with Trojan. Most farmers will want to see
a economical return from that long term. And because we
need that from every aspect of farming. Farming is a
(00:45):
it's a money making venture. We're not doing it as
a hobby, probably, as Paul suggested, I think probably just
picking a paddock at a time is probably a good strategy.
I've probably run into more issues where people want to
go all IPM instantly. That's presented issues just getting around
the farm, monitoring and making sure we don't get any
chronic outbreaks. You'll see the value, I suppose, from using
products like van der core. You should only have to
(01:08):
do one of them. Where in a long spring where
heliothis or etiella come in early, you may be doing
two Trojans. So it's worked well actually. So.
S1 (01:21):
Hello and welcome back to Shared Solutions by BCG. I'm
Janine Batters in the third episode of our series planning
for prosperity. I'm going to be speaking with lots of
people about integrated pest management entomologist doctor Paul Horn, Wimmera
agronomist Tim Corona and Bcg's Casey SIM. I thought I
might introduce you. Paul has a wealth of experience in IPM.
(01:42):
He has worked in IPM in a range of crops
in different places including Yemen, Thailand, Spain, Denmark, the list
goes on. He has written books. He's done it all.
Tim is a Willmar agronomist. He has been working with
farmers across the region for over 14 years. He is
highly respected and also has investigated at IPM and work
with farmers wanting to implement IPM. Also Bcg's Casey SIM,
(02:04):
who is our resident insect specialist. So I'm really looking
forward to having all your insights today on IPM. So
for a start, I thought we might talk. What is
IPM pole?
S3 (02:15):
IPM is is really a very simple thing to me.
There's only three ways you can control pests in any
crop and that's using pesticides. Of course that's one option
biological control, which are the insects and mites that eat
the pest insects and mites. That's the second one. And
cultural controls things that are probably done for other reasons,
(02:37):
like stubble retention or tillage. They're things that impact either
the pests or the beneficials. So all IPM is, is
trying to use as many of those options as you
can in a compatible way. So obviously, if you're going
to spray a pesticide, if there's a choice between things
that will kill the pest and not kill Beneficials, then
(03:01):
that's a better option than a spray that will kill
the beneficials. And then you're reduced to relying on just pesticides.
So IPM isn't a complex thing at all. It's really
just trying to use a set of compatible control options. Okay.
S1 (03:17):
And how do you implement IPM in a broad acre sense?
S3 (03:21):
In Broad Acre, we probably separate the set of pests
into establishment pests and those that fly in later. So
the establishment pests are usually not always, but usually things
that are resident. They live in the paddock all year round.
So things like red legged earth mite, Lucerne, flea slugs, snails,
(03:46):
they're all there. And so managing those resident pests in
most cases involves looking after resident beneficials. The first thing
to do is to try and get the habitat right
for beneficial species. That can be quite straightforward. It can
be just stubble retention. Minimum tillage has favoured beneficials greatly.
(04:11):
It can also favour some pests. And so that's where
the other options come in. And so the choice of
which pesticides you use and how you use it is
going to allow you to control the pests and still
keep the beneficials. But if you choose the wrong one,
then you might control the pests, but then you lose
(04:32):
the beneficials and therefore you've got ongoing problems.
S1 (04:35):
Okay, so what I'm hearing is it's not an organic
approach where you just say, I'm not going to spray anything.
It's using a combination of biological and chemical.
S3 (04:45):
Both conventional and organic farmers have the same set of pests.
Both have the same set of beneficials. Both have the
same set of cultural options in which they can manipulate,
Pest and beneficial populations. The difference is organic farmers don't
have synthetic chemicals, so that means they're more usually more
(05:08):
likely to apply some of the cultural controls that take
a bit more effort than simply putting on an insecticide.
Organic IPM isn't organic, but organic farmers can use IPM,
so conventional farmers have an easier option with IPM because
they have a greater selection of pesticides to choose from.
(05:31):
Some are disruptive to beneficials, others are not disruptive. And
also the formulation, if it's a seed dressing or a
bait that's even with the same active ingredient, that might
be broad spectrum. You can formulate the sides so that
they impact the pests but don't disrupt beneficials.
S1 (05:51):
Okay, so it sounds really good in theory. Paul, how
do I implement IPM PM.
S4 (05:57):
On my.
S1 (05:58):
Farm. So we grow legumes, wheat, barley, canola, vetch. Where
do I start? What do I do?
S3 (06:06):
I mentioned we divide the set of pests into two.
So the first thing is to work out what set
of pests you have to deal with. So there's the
establishment pests, and there's those that fly in later like
aphids and heliothis, things like that. So the resident beneficial
species that you want are going to take time to
(06:26):
build up. But the beneficial species that eat aphids and heliothis,
things like that, they come in every year no matter what.
So if you've got a rotation that involves things like canola,
are much more vulnerable to establishment pests than things like cereals.
So the usual suggestion is people pick a paddock, start
(06:48):
with the cereals because they're not going to be so
sensitive to the pest damage at the establishment. You see
dressings to get the crop through, use baits instead of
bare earth sprays. Basically, look at what options there are
in terms of pesticides, for the aphids and for the
(07:09):
caterpillars that are not going to disrupt the biological control
agents that will be in the paddock, and you want
to keep them for controlling loose end flea and red
legged earth mite. I would pick a paddock, start with
the cereals, and usually it takes 2 to 3 years
before a population in that paddock will build up to
(07:32):
have a really significant impact on things like red legged
earth mite and Lucerne flea. It's about looking at what
pests you've got, how do you control them, what are
the choices? And steer away from the broad spectrum insecticides?
S1 (07:46):
If I'm only doing one paddock, one, I'm worried that
all the pests from the next paddock are going to
come in. And I'm also worried about the pests in
my neighbour's paddock. So it's just one paddock. Aren't they
all just going to come in from every side?
S3 (07:59):
So the establishment pests, things like red legged earth mite,
they will move in from an edge, but they're not
going to move vast distances. So there's an edge effect
and you can use border treatments if that is a concern.
And the things like aphids and heliothis and other caterpillars,
they fly in from hundreds of kilometres away anyway, so
(08:22):
it's actually not a problem. You can do it on
a paddock. And all I'm suggesting that for is you
don't have to switch the farm over to something that
might seem very different and a potentially quite scary you
can do it paddock by paddock, and after you've done
a few paddocks, then all of a sudden you've got
(08:43):
more paddocks full of beneficials than those that don't.
S1 (08:47):
Okay, so I'm going to cross to Tim now because
I did have another question, but I thought I think
Tim might have some good insight into this. So Tim
was involved with you, worked with you and Tim on
a paddock that BCG was involved with a couple of
years ago, implementing and working through an IPM strategy for
Broad Acre. Tim, how did you go about implementing the strategy,
starting with cereals, doing the seed treatments and the baits?
S2 (09:12):
Yeah, so in a way, you probably implemented everything that
Paul just said, really. We've stopped using broad spectrum insecticides
on those paddocks. We've been using them to cloak fruit
as a seed, dressing in the cereals and in the
pulse side of things. Probably our major problems being slugs
through the last three years. This year they haven't been
(09:32):
quite as bad, but they've still been present in lentils.
But it has worked. We've got canola in there this
year and we've got away with having any major damage.
We did bait for slugs, but that's been the extent
of insect damage.
S1 (09:47):
What year are you in of working on IPM in
this paddock?
S2 (09:51):
I think we're the third, I'm pretty sure.
S1 (09:54):
Okay. And so you started off with cereals? Yep. And
then you moved on to legumes.
S2 (09:59):
And then.
S1 (10:00):
Canola. How did you go with the canola team? Yeah.
S2 (10:02):
It hasn't been too bad, really. We have bad at slugs,
but that's it. And batted only once, which is good.
S1 (10:09):
Okay. And what are some of the things, Tim, that
have been difficult about implementing IPM on this paddock?
S2 (10:15):
I don't think there's one paddocks been too bad, probably,
as Paul suggested. I think probably just picking a paddock
at a time is probably a good strategy. I've probably
run into more issues where people want to go all
IPM instantly. That's presented issues just getting around the farm,
monitoring and making sure we don't get any chronic outbreaks
of damage from any sort of insect that's popped up.
(10:36):
It's worked well, actually. So we've started spraying. Probably the
main prophylactic insecticide we've been using has been an SP
controlling caterpillars in our legumes. So we have. Tim's shifted
to Manticore, which is a caterpillar specific insecticide. And yeah,
he has moved to do that over his entire farm now,
(10:56):
which is great. I think we'll see. Tim will try
and expand that process into more of his paddocks rather
than just the one.
S1 (11:02):
And you've seen that to work.
S2 (11:03):
It has. Yeah. As I said, we've we've lost crop
but it's more been from slugs. And what he's experienced
hasn't been any different to anyone else in the region.
The slugs have really come out of left field and
caused a lot of damage that we wouldn't have expected
five years ago.
S1 (11:18):
Okay, talking about slugs, that might be a nice little segue.
So Bcg's Casey SIM, she's doing a project on slugs
at the moment. Casey, are you able to tell our
listeners or let our listeners know, what are you seeing
in terms of slugs at the moment? Because they have
just been I know on our farm they've just been
an absolute headache. Yeah.
S5 (11:36):
So we're monitoring the slug populations in six different paddocks
around Horsham, including Tim's IPM paddock that they mentioned before.
It sounds like relative to previous years, slug numbers are
a lot lower this year, probably due to the drier conditions.
S6 (11:53):
So earlier in the year.
S5 (11:54):
We were seeing a lot more striped slugs around the area.
And these slugs aren't really known to cause much damage
to crops or canola compared to the black yield or
the brown field slugs. In terms of the black yield slugs,
we did see a few of them pop up around
April and May, sort of after that autumn break. So
(12:16):
that's sort of when the soil moisture is sufficient for
them to come up to the surface and breed. So
we would expect to see them around that time of
the year. And we've also seen a few brown field
slugs around, and they typically don't do as much damage
as the black field slugs. But we have seen a
few of those in April, and now we're starting to
(12:38):
see their populations increase now in October.
S1 (12:41):
Okay. Thanks, Casey. Would that be consistent, Tim, with what
you've seen in the paddock?
S2 (12:45):
Yeah, numbers were definitely down, but there was still a
fair bit of damage that sort of happened in July.
Paddocks that were preventively baited at sowing. We must have
got the first generation of slugs because they were a
lot easier to manage. We had a lot more issues
with lentils and canola in general. We didn't bait them
up front and we had to come back and bait
(13:06):
them multiple times afterwards. Some paddocks got up to three baits. Yeah,
they've been a real challenge to be quite honest, so
it doesn't seem to be any great sort of strategy
to get on top of them. Apart from bait, definitely.
Removing stubble and cultivation helped, but given we're farming in
a low to medium rainfall zone, that's not something that
(13:27):
many farmers really want to do. And it showed out
with this dry period we've had at the moment that
long term, no till stubble retention strategies definitely been the
way to grow crop on minimal moisture.
S1 (13:38):
Definitely have seen that this year, haven't we, Tim? I think,
as Paul said, with baiting, that can be part of
an IPM strategy. Paul, do you have anything to add
in terms of slugs? I just know that there's been
so much pain around slugs and it's so expensive to
bait for slugs, particularly when you're baiting 3 or 4 times.
S3 (13:57):
Controlling slugs that all the slugs that we have in
Australia that are pests in agriculture come from overseas. So
they've escaped their specialist natural enemies. So there's things like beetles,
which are the big black predatory beetles. They'll eat them.
But if the slug population is high, then there's no
(14:19):
way that they'll give significant control. If it's a low population,
they'll contribute to control. But a lot of the times
it's much better to use a high rate of bait
early rather than bait three times with low rates. You know,
if I had $10 to spend, I would probably spend
5 or $6 on a first bait and then the
(14:42):
rest on a second really close together, probably two weeks apart,
right around planting. I'd use as much as was possible then,
Because the slugs spend the summer. The ones that survive
the summer are mostly adults, and if you can kill
those adults before they then start breeding, you'll have less
of a problem to deal with later on. And the
(15:05):
other important thing to remember is that slugs are hermaphrodites,
which means that they're both male and female. So it's
not just half the population that's going to give birth
to offspring. The entire population will lay eggs at some point.
And the other thing to remember is they're continuous breeders.
(15:25):
So if there's moisture, they'll keep going. If the theoretical
number of eggs lay is a thousand per individual, two
generations means a thousand times a thousand, that's a million.
So you can go from 1 to 1 million over
the course of a summer. So when people say to us, oh,
these paddocks, you know, we didn't have slugs here last year,
(15:47):
where do they come from? That's where they come from.
They just breed prolifically whenever there's moisture.
S1 (15:54):
Okay, so back to IPM, back to how a farmer
would implement it on their farm. Tim, I wanted to
ask you about the price. So you said Tim is
putting van der core across all his legumes. Now, what
is the price difference? Because I feel like that can
be the point where farmers go, yes or no?
S2 (16:16):
Yes. So Tim is putting van der Kuil over all
of his pulses, lentils and faba beans rather than putting
on Trojan, which most of the area or most. That's
the most common insecticide used for caterpillars in the Wimmera
and van der core I've got here is 30, say
$35 a hectare. Trojans. The higher rates about $5 a hectare.
(16:38):
So it is a big investment to go to van
der core. Caterpillars in pulses I feel, just have to
be controlled. I'm not comfortable leaving him there and not
doing anything about it. Van der core is good. I'm
very happy with that strategy. Just leaving it and hoping
that none come with monitoring. I feel it's very risky
because as soon as we start getting grub damage in
(16:58):
our pulses, they turn it from a high value food
product back to feed. So it could be the difference
between some years. It could be $500 a ton. We
just can't be ignoring that threat in my opinion. Tim
realizes that and that's why he's gone to van. Decker
is hoping that using van der Corps rather than Trojan,
that we will be able to help breed up the
(17:21):
Carabid beetle. That's his big hope, and I hope it
does for him as well. His biggest pest is slugs,
so we're trying to do whatever we can to mitigate
that issue. Long term, I think this dry season will
probably help quite a bit. But yeah, whatever else we
can do will be doing that as well. That price
gap is a hurdle for a lot of farmers. I
(17:41):
feel that I've probably got other farmers that would, but
the majority of them would not be keen to spend
that amount of money compared to what they could be
doing with Trojan. Most farmers will want to see a
economical return from that long term. And because we need
that from every aspect of farming. Farming is a it's
a money making venture. We're not doing it as a hobby,
(18:02):
just a huge price difference really. Yeah. Over 500,000 hectares
of pulses, which probably a lot of my clients run.
It does turn into a fair cost.
S1 (18:13):
Compliant chemical storage sheds are important infrastructure for cropping enterprises,
from a safety point of view and for a sustainability certification.
BCG gold sponsors action the Big Shed people have developed
a range of standard chemical shed designs to help you
meet these requirements. The designs include details such as lock
up storage areas, bonded concrete floors, ventilation and sprayer bays.
(18:36):
Head to action steel. Com.au to learn more about the designs,
sizes and prices. Oh, do you have any thoughts on that?
Because I feel like you would come up against this
every day of the week.
S3 (18:49):
It's one of the most common things we hear from
broadacre farmers that other selective chemicals are priced for horticulture
and not for broadacre. But there's a couple of reasons
that people should consider using a selective product, even if
it is more expensive. And one of them, Tim's, just
explained you can foster the populations of beneficial species, but
(19:11):
the other side is if you've got a pest that
is resistant to those cheap chemicals, then it's not going
to work. All it's going to do is disrupt control
of other things with the, you know, the changing climate.
I'm hearing reports from Broadacre agronomists in South Australia and
western Victoria saying we've sprayed an SP three times and
(19:34):
the caterpillars are still there. And that's because we used
to only get Heliothis punctigera in broad Acre. But now Armigera,
which is resistant to those SPS, it's coming in earlier
in different years. That's a problem. And also like what's
the cost of pest control overall? Like if you're using
(19:56):
broad spectrum insecticides that are killing a whole range of beneficials,
there's a sequence of pests that we see develop. And
so it starts off with things like red legged earth mite.
And if you kill those with a broad spectrum, that's good,
but you kill the things that eat Lucerne flea. So
then you get Lucerne three problems. So then if you
up the rate because they're tougher to kill, then you
(20:19):
kill the things that eat, pray and balaustium mite. And
so there's a sequence of pest problems which are getting
progressively harder to deal with. So while those cheap products
are around and they work, make sense for people to
do that. But if they don't work and you're inducing problems,
what's the pest control cost over a 5 or 10
(20:43):
year period? You know where you're going in all the time,
harder and harder because these pests are being caused in
a lot of cases by the selection of products. The
final reason might be those cheap products. Even if they
do work and they're certainly available, they're legal to use.
But if you want to export and the country you're
(21:05):
exporting to doesn't want that on the spray list, then
you're going to lose the market.
S1 (21:10):
That makes sense. Paul. Tim, do you have anything to
add to that?
S2 (21:15):
I agree with everything Paul said. I think we'll probably
be forced into more and more IPM strategy. We are
actually losing some of the core prophylactic insecticides like chlorpyrifos,
so we've only got a few years left to use
that now, so it will make us think and try
and work out new strategies. Okay.
S1 (21:34):
And in terms of this paddock that you're working with
Tim and other paddocks that you've worked with, are you
seeing population of beneficials increase like the Carabid beetle?
S2 (21:43):
It's hard for me to say at the moment. I
think we're at three years in. Yes. But yeah, I
can't definitively say yes to that.
S1 (21:51):
How often do you monitor?
S2 (21:53):
Depends what I'm monitoring for. Like I'm through the paddock
a lot, but probably not digging around in the soil
looking for carabid beetle. The paddocks got through historically growing
canola and Horsham. We'd put a litre of chlorpyrifos down
and that was to control those false wireworm. But but
also some of those other establishment pests like millipedes and
(22:13):
slaters and red legged earth mite and loose and flea like.
We haven't seen that the canola had a seed treatment.
The strategy is working, and I'm pretty sure Tim will
adopt it in more paddocks in the future, which would
be great.
S1 (22:25):
Okay, so in terms of this paddock and farmers that
you have worked with, have you found that you've lost
a lot of crop, a lot of profit in the
first couple of years of implementing IPM? Because that that's
what keeps coming back to me. I just feel like
it's an awful feeling for farmers to be seeing all
(22:46):
these insects on that will pass, I should say, on
their crop and not controlling them.
S2 (22:53):
Definitely, yes. I wouldn't say that in the short term.
I've had any clients just say, right, we're going to
IPM this year. IPM has been around for a long
time now. I don't think farmers are going into it
thinking that they just stop using insecticide and magically all
the beneficials will appear and it'll all be rosy. It
(23:14):
may happen like that, but there's a good chance it won't.
There needs to be a strategy around it, and I
think the 3 to 4 year lead into growing canola
is a great approach, the polls said. I've had a
few people that have been in it long term, like
not Tim, and two of them have actually worked with
Paul in the past. One of them, um, he's sort
(23:34):
of near stall and he does a phenomenal job with it.
But I think this run of probably above average rainfall
years other than this year has built up a huge
amount of organic matter or just stubble double loading over
the paddocks. And he's had some real issues the last
couple of years, especially last year. He just felt he
was chasing his tail the whole year. He was spraying
(23:56):
a paddock, thinking it was fine and saying that he
was getting canola eaten by a millipede somewhere, or slaters.
Another not so much red legged earth mite or loose
and flea. I haven't had huge challenges with them. It's
more of those, um, I don't know what. What do
you call that? Those sort of insects. Paul. The millipede
sliders and earwigs.
S3 (24:15):
Millipedes and slaters are not insects. Earwigs are insects. So, yeah,
they're all invertebrate pests. But slaters is a tricky one.
I'm not totally convinced that they do all the damage
that they're blamed for all the time. Sometimes I think
it's where there is a lot of stubble, and it's
easy to find Slaters. Much harder to find things like slugs,
(24:38):
tiny little slugs. But probably one slug would do an
awful lot more damage than 100 slaters. They're all pests
that you have to deal with and it's really important.
I think what you said just before that IPM isn't
just doing nothing. IPM involves the three control options and
there is nothing else. All the control has to come
(25:00):
out of one of those three tools. And the advice
that I give to people, if it doesn't work, then
that's of no value to anyone. If there's pests there,
you have to control them. It's just how you choose
to use it, which products you choose, whether it's cultural
or whether it's a pesticide. Uh, there's no advantage to
(25:21):
anyone in watching insects and other pests destroy their crop.
All IPM is, is trying to use things in the
best possible way so they work together.
S2 (25:32):
I fully agree with you that sliders and millipedes are
getting blamed for slugs all over the place. Really? But
this guy did get out at 1:00 in the morning
two nights in a row, and found them absolutely covering
his canola, canal, which he hadn't seen before. He does
have slugs as well, but that monitoring aspect of IPM
is something that growers, I feel really need to get
(25:55):
their heads around. A lot of these pests are nocturnal,
so you do need to get out. Unfortunately with a
torch at midnight to see what's going on. It's a
commitment by the grower as much as by their agronomist
or advisor to do it properly. If you're not going
to commit to it and do it properly, I think
you are going to end up with some real potential
(26:15):
damage and economical loss.
S1 (26:17):
Both of you are saying that planning is really important,
and to not just sort of go and put your
hands up in the air and say, I'm not touching it.
S3 (26:24):
Yeah, if there's a pest and the crop's getting damaged,
you've got to try your best to control it. I'm
suggesting that where there's a softer option that's worth doing
in the long run, if there's no soft option whatsoever,
then the only choice is to use a broad spectrum insecticide.
But usually that doesn't happen if you're planning ahead. So
(26:47):
the planning ahead can include things like your rotation, which
means planning years ahead, not just when the crops in
the ground. When people ring me up and say, I've
got my canola, it's being eaten by such and such
a pest, what do I do? Usually the answer is
spray it. If you talk to me a few months
(27:08):
ago or last year, we could have worked out a strategy.
The closer you get to the damage being done, the
fewer options you've got.
S2 (27:17):
What sort of damage to the long term viability of IPM?
There's one application of dimethyl eight have. I feel that
the growers at the moment that are invested, they're emotionally
invested in the ideology around it, you know, they really
get worried that one application of Le Mat or dimethyl
eight or chlorpyrifos is going to absolutely crash their system
(27:37):
and they're back to square one. But does that actually happen?
Or can you know, if their clover's getting annihilated by Redlegs.
Can we put 80ml dimethyl eight on it? And we
haven't absolutely destroyed the last three years of IPM work.
S3 (27:51):
It can be really disruptive to things like carabid beetles,
if that's what you want, because there's only one generation
a year for most of those species. If you knock
out a whole generation, you've lost them. Probably they won't
build up again for several years. But the things like
beneficial species that eat aphids and caterpillars, they're going to
(28:12):
come in whatever has been the history of that paddock.
So it's not going to matter at all. But it's disruptive,
but it's not the end of the the world. If
it has to be done, then as long as growers
know this is not a good thing, it's it's not ideal.
But I'm going to do it to save this year's crop.
(28:33):
But after that, I'm going to try and approach it
in a different way. If it's clover, if it's for grazing,
even grazing management has a huge impact on pests and beneficials.
The strategy isn't just spray or not spray, it's putting
the whole lot together. And the cultural controls are often
(28:53):
really underestimated how much they actually can do. But the
short answer to your question is Lima is going to
have or other broad spectrum is going to have a
big impact on some beneficials, but not all of them.
S2 (29:07):
Is there any soft options for mites?
S3 (29:10):
Not for redlegs in horticulture. The things like two spotted mite.
There's a whole range of miticides that are selective. They
will kill the pest mites and not the beneficial mites.
As far as I'm aware, all the testing that's been done,
none of those selective ones are effective on red legged
earth mite. So the seed dressing, as you've mentioned, that's
(29:33):
the safest option because it can control the mites without
disrupting the predatory species.
S1 (29:40):
So going back to what you were saying before you
piqued my interest, Paul, when you said livestock, are they
good or bad for Beneficials?
S3 (29:48):
They can be either, depending on how they're managed. If
you think of a paddock that's really grazed hard and
almost down to the bare earth, there's no habitat left
for beneficial species. So they don't just need food, they
need shelter and a habitat to live in. So grazing
(30:08):
management is a really important part to keep that population
of predators there. On the other hand, if you had
a paddock that's full of slugs and you wanted to
get rid of them quickly, intensive grazing is going to
absolutely get them better than any baiting will because it
removes the food, it removes the shelter, and they get trampled. Yeah.
(30:33):
Are they good or bad? It's it's how they're managed.
S1 (30:36):
That is good to know. I was just thinking about
that and going back to him to what you were
talking about with monitoring.
S7 (30:42):
How?
S1 (30:43):
What would you suggest farmers do to monitor? Because I
can tell you right now, farmers are not going to
be going out every night. They're probably busy doing something
else at 1:00 in the morning. They don't have time
to be checking with their torches every night at 12:00.
What do they do?
S3 (30:58):
So once again, I'll go back to the two sorts
of pests the pests and beneficials. There's the resident ones,
and there's the transient ones that move in and out.
So the resident ones, once you know that you've got
a population of predators, that is really good. You don't
need to keep monitoring for them. You can trust that
they will be there. But the pests that fly in
(31:20):
things like aphids or heliothis or etiella, if it's in
other crops, you can monitor for those with traps, and
it doesn't mean that you have to go out all
the time. It just those traps will tell you when
there's a flight happening, and it'll only be at very
short periods of time through the life of the crop,
(31:42):
But usually when we've worked with farmers and agronomists to
make the change from conventional spraying to using IPM, the
monitoring is really important at first just to show people
this is what we're talking about. But once the confidence
is there that there are things beneficial predators, parasites, they
(32:05):
are there. We know they're there. We know what to
do to encourage them. And then seeing that the control happen,
it's not actually necessary to monitor for all those things
all the time. It's more important to monitor for movement
or flights in of the pests that you're worried about.
S1 (32:24):
Okay, Tim, how do you feel about that?
S2 (32:26):
No, I agree, I think the the slug issue that
we never used to deal with, that's really throwing a
spanner in the works of establishment in the Wimmera. That's
not just for IPM people, that's everyone. It's just I
think it's been a symptom of the better seasons we've had,
and I'm sure the continuous crop are no till. Full
(32:49):
stubble retention systems just been a fantastic habitat for a
lot of problematic species, particularly slugs, but also snails. If
we go into a few dry years, I think the
issue will dissipate. But there has to be a commitment
from the grower that you're going to do some sort
of monitoring. You can't just totally remove yourself from that.
(33:09):
It's your crop, it's not anyone else's, and you're going
to take the economic loss to if something happens astronomically.
So I don't think like when I say you got
to monitor, it's just drive over your paddock and if
something doesn't look right, ring your agronomist. It's um, yeah.
You don't have to identify everything straight away, but if
(33:32):
everything looks fine, I'm sure it is fine. But when
something doesn't look fine, it probably needs more investigation.
S1 (33:38):
And you're saying that across the board. You're not saying
that just in terms of RPM.
S2 (33:42):
Oh heck no. That's some disease. Weeds. Everything. We've had
a big increase in disease too. With the wetter years
as well.
S3 (33:49):
As far as monitoring for those establishment pests, we usually
just use something like tiles down on the ground. They're
just artificial rocks and things like earwigs. Slugs will retreat
under those. And so you'd want to pick a high
risk area in the paddock. And if everything's all right there,
(34:09):
then it's probably all right over a much bigger area.
If things are not good there. Maybe have a look
in a few different points. We would say monitor at
key times. You don't need to monitor all the time.
You don't want it to be so onerous that it
just doesn't get done at all. But at establishment, as
the crop's coming through, you look for establishment pests. Once
(34:32):
it's up, you don't need to do that anymore. Then
you need to monitor for aphids, and then you need
to monitor for caterpillars and flights of moths. So it's
just monitoring at short intervals.
S5 (34:42):
Yeah. So how we've been monitoring floods this year is
we've got these refuge mats that we've soaked in water
to try and make a nice, moist environment for the
slugs to seek refuge in. And with our monitoring, we
do try to check earlier in the morning, within a
few days of a rainfall event, just to make sure
that we're checking sort of when the slugs are more
(35:04):
likely to be active.
S1 (35:06):
Is there anything else that anyone would like to add
that might help our listeners with determining whether they want
to implement IPM or not?
S3 (35:13):
I'd suggest do it before there's a crisis. People often
ring me when there's a crisis, so if you can
make the change trial IPM before there's a crisis, whether
that's resistant pests or the market demanding certain things, that's
different makes sense to do it while you've got some options.
S2 (35:33):
I think just ease into it like we spoke about initially.
Do a few paddocks, get your confidence up. You can
work out how it's going to work. From that point.
You'll see the value, I suppose, from using products like Manticore.
There definitely is other benefits from, say, going back to Manticore.
Like you should only have to do one of them
where in a long spring where heliothis or etiella come
(35:54):
in early, you may be doing two trojans or two
synthetic pyrethroids, which still might be slightly cheaper, but you've
got to go over your whole pulse place twice with
your boom spray.
S1 (36:06):
If you love the podcast and would like to show
your support, please rate us five stars. Wherever you listen
to your podcasts and share it with your friends. We'll
catch you again soon.
S5 (36:16):
BCG drives the prosperity of Australian farmers, communities and landscapes
through applied research, innovation and events. To find out more
about what we're up to, our team and events near you,
visit BCG Gorgo. BCG acknowledges the traditional custodians of country
throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.
(36:37):
We pay our respects to their elders, past and present.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com