Swede midges 'last straw' for northern canola growers

Monday, April 6, 2015

It's not every day a growers' association asks its members to temporarily stop growing the crop it represents, but that's what the Ontario Canola Growers Association is requesting in northern Ontario's Timiskaming region.

Based on a recommendation from its research team, the association made the request this winter to reduce the area's swede midge population to more manageable levels. Association president Terry Phillips, who farms 340 acres in Kerns township, says farmers in the midge hot spot of three townships – Kerns, Hudson and Armstrong – along with several adjoining townships, should stop growing canola for three years.

The idea is to remove the midge's host and starve them "to a point where we can manage them," he says.

Swede midge is a small insect that releases a secretion while feeding on canola, causing the plant to "go all squirrelly," Phillips says. Last year, he grew 21 acres and, despite spraying four times, lost $300 per acre to swede midge. He's not growing any canola this year and will likely plant more soybeans.

About 100 to 150 canola growers in Timiskaming grow about half of Ontario's approximately 50,000 acres of canola. Ideally, farmers need to forgo about half of those acres. But Phillips says that "in my wildest dreams, I don't think we'll get that kind of buy-in."  

Phillips says the pupae stage of the pest can live in the soil for about two or three years.

He acknowledges farmers can't be forced to quit growing canola. And the association has received some fairly "significant push back" to its request. Still "this is the last straw attempt to get on top of the problem," he says. BF