Pests are a top concern for farmers, especially those with limited management options. Wireworms are one pervasive example. A misnomer, they are not actually worms but rather the larval form of click beetles. These sneaky creatures can wreak havoc on fields as they hollow out seeds and shred stems in cereal crops. Hard to identify and even harder to manage, these small but mighty pests can devastate entire fields.

Farmers do not discriminate against pests. Of the two or three that assuredly lurk in the canopy of any given crop, they hate each one equally. It is for this reason GrainsWest was curious about the pest perspectives of farmers around the globe.

Meghan Vankosky is a field crop entomologist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at the Saskatoon Research and Development Centre.

Grasshoppers are known to inhabit areas that receive less than 700 millimetres of rainfall per year, which includes Alberta.