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  • From: "Dalew Farms" <dalew AT phonenet.ca>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Swede Midge
  • Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 09:24:59 -0400

Hello,
 
I'm curious to know how other farms are faring who have to contend with Swede Midge!?  If you can share anything that you have tried and has worked well, and anything you have tried that did not work that would be great!
 
I live in an area where the cash croppers grow a significant amount of canola, and our swede midge pressure is now very high.  I haven't actually done any trapping, but all the signs are there and a 0% harvestable yield on broccoli also tells you how high our levels are.  I believe that we first started running into Swede Midge problems either the year of, or the year after a neighbor bordering our farm grew canola, and its only gotten worse since. (That's from my memory, I don't write down my neighbors' crop rotations ha!)   At first I did not realize that it was Swede Midge, but another close by market gardener put me onto the Swede Midge issue.  The first year we had a problem, it only affected broccoli, and only a portion of our crop did not head out.  The loss was minor, and I wrote it off at that time as just a problem related to weather and/or high levels of flea beetles shortly after transplanting,  since it only affected a batch or two.  But last year we had almost a complete loss on broccoli, and lots of problems with our other brassicas as well.  This year so far we haven't been able to harvest anything except our earliest batch of kohlrabi, all the other other batches of brassicas have been complete write offs.
 
This is the first year that I've "known" ahead of time what I was facing, and I've been trying to spray a combination of pyganic and spinosad every 7-10 days.  (not tank mixing, rotating treatments).  At first when we only had a few small batches of brassicas in the field, I was using a backpack sprayer, now I am using our field sprayer with the tractor.  I hope, but am not certain yet that the field sprayer gives us better coverage, and hopefully control (than the backpack sprayer) and maybe our later batches of brassicas we may get something harvestable. 
 
The grower who put me onto the Swede Midge issue has been using row covers on all of his brassicas and he is reporting some cautious success so far.  He told me he got a 40% harvestable broccoli crop recently, but that he thinks the bugs are still getting in around where weeds may grow at the edges of row covers etc. 
 
Anyways, I would love to hear experiences from other growers on how you've done at dealing with Swede Midge, what's worked and what hasn't!
 
Thanks
 
Dave
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dalew Farms
Web: www.dalewfarms.ca
E-mail: dalew AT phonenet.ca
Phone: (705)594-1823
Fax: (705)594-1834
10781 Hwy 64, Lavigne Ont
P0H 1R0


  • [Market-farming] Swede Midge, Dalew Farms, 07/31/2013

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