Herbert Cane Grub Management

Herbert cane growers strategic grub management implementing BSES decision- making tools

Objectives:

The project seeks to achieve the following:

  • The project seeks to develop a strategy that can be adopted by the region long term;
  • Provision of advice on district-wide grub trends to group members to assist with grub management decisions;
  • Testing of a farm-level monitoring and prediction service that could be used to make field-by-field decisions, by interested growers;
  • Implementation of a regional approach to managing the grub problem by participating growers in addition to individual efforts;
  • Increased adoption of grub IPM strategies in the Herbert;
  • Participating growers making well-informed decisions on when, where and what to treat, thus minimising pesticide use and crop losses.
  • Increased revenue plus reduced input costs with environmental and social benefits (reduction of chemical use in a Wet Tropics Region).

Project Activities:

The region will be flown annually with geo-referenced photography equipment. Based upon the geo-referenced photographs selected farms in the Herbert will be monitored for pest activity as follows:

  • ─ Assess district-wide grub damage (from the geo-referenced photography and other historical GIS data );
  • ─ Monitor beetle activity;
  • ─ Collect data on pesticide use on both farm and regional levels (with help from HCPSL and local resellers);
  • ─ Assess gaps in selected crops in November 2010, 2011, 2012;
  • ─ Record grub numbers in 2- 3 selected blocks on each of 20 farms, representing the whole Herbert area (March - April 2010 & 2011);
  • ─ Determine grub pathogen levels with assistance from BSES entomologist;
  • ─ Examine several farms in more detail to test the accuracy of the farm-level prediction system proposed by BSES.
  • ─ Undertake a cost benefit analysis of the system, to enable regional advisory groups like HCPSL and BSES to make informed decisions on whether to continue the program after the life of the project.

 

Using this data, a judgement will be made whether the grub trend is increasing, static or decreasing in each sub-district in general and individual farms in particular. A more detailed prediction system will be used to predict subsequent grub trends for each block in the "case study" farms.

Decisions will be made and growers will be advised to implement the recommendations on Best Management Strategies.  The level of implementation will be examined by the group and this will be a key milestone of the project.  An assessment of the acceptability of prediction results to growers will be made, and ways to improve both the efficiency of the prediction system and the level of take-up by growers will be investigated.

 

Contact Person: Geoff Morley (07) 47774253