#fleabeetle

Controls insect pests such as aphids, whiteflies, thrips, leafhopper, leafminer, sawfly, mole cricket, white grubs, lacebugs, billbugs, beetles, mealybugs, sawfly larvae, and cockroaches in leafy vegetables, in residential and commercial buildings, outdoor uses for professional turf management, turf farms, professional ornamental

Usage recommendations

1. 300g/ tree (oshin 1 gr) soil application

There is an old proverb that says, “If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito.” I love this quote because it reflects the way that I try to live my life- obviously not by tantalizing innocent people as they sleep at night, but by focusing on all the little ways that I as an individual can make a positive, meaningful impact on my community. It’s why I’m passionate about agriculture. Running a small CSA farm gives me the opportunity to nurture a piece of land, to provide healthy food for my friends and neighbours and, hopefully, as the farm evolves and grows, foster a greater sense of community amongst food and nature-lovers in my hometown.

Unfortunately, as I came to realize a few weeks ago, the proverb about the mosquito also applies quite well to another small and mighty pest, known as the flea beetle. When I was crop planning in the wintertime, my parents, who are conventional cash crop farmers, warned me against growing anything in the same plant family as canola. This family is known as brassicaceae or cruciferae and includes many well-loved cool- weather crops like cabbage, broccoli, radish, kale, arugula, and mustard. My parents told me that if I planted these crops in my garden, cabbage moths and all the other pests that abound in the surrounding canola fields would easily find and destroy them. But I really wanted to grow brassicas. So I came up with a plan.

(About 500 feet of brassica seedlings tucked under row cover) 

I planted hundreds of little brassica seedlings in the greenhouse in early April in order to give them a leg up and a head start before I transplanted them out into the field in early May. I created tunnels out of metal wire and covered my rows with a white fabric designed to hold warmth and moisture in while keeping pests out. I carefully buried the edges of the fabric so as to leave no room for entrance. I figured that would do the trick. 

What I didn’t realize was that while I was doing all this, hundreds of tiny little brassica-loving beetles were waking up in the soil, delighted to find a nice warm shelter above them and a big green feast laid out in front of them. When I lifted the row cover to check on my kale about a week later, there was nothing there. I frantically tore away the rest of the covers to realize the broccoli, cabbage, and the kohlrabi hadn’t fared much better. It was devastating. I had lost hundreds of the plants I had been depending on for my earliest CSA baskets. I spent the rest of the week in a mad damage-control-frenzy, planting other less-susceptible crops like spinach, Swiss chard, peas and beans in order to make up for the losses. 

A few seedlings managed to escape the wrath of the beetles (left), while most suffered the same fate as this poor decimated broccoli plant (middle, right).

 Upon doing some research, I learned that once flea beetles are in the soil, there is really nothing an organic farmer can do to control them. My timing could have been better, as the beetles are most active when they first emerge in the spring and tend to die off in the summer before a new generation hatches in the fall. However, delaying planting is not an ideal tactic because brassicas are cool weather crops. They thrive in the spring and fall and are prone to bolting and bitterness when temperatures are high in the summertime. As my sympathetic father pointed out, “This is why canola farmers use insecticides.”

But that statement frustrated me. It frustrated me because I know that the system of farming that relies on pesticides and other synthetic inputs to grow vast fields of monoculture crops is also the system that causes biodiversity to decline, knocks ecosystems out of balance, and gives rise to disproportionate quantities of pests. In nature, there are plants and insects that deter flea beetles and generally balance out insect populations. Parasitic wasps known as braconids feed on flea beetles in their larval stage, while fragrant plants like thyme, catnip, and mint mask the scent of brassicas, effectively hiding them from the beetles. As a small ecological farmer, I can do my best to encourage beneficial plants and insects like this, but truth be told, I cannot compete with the thousands of acres of canola that surround me, giving life to millions (Trillions? Gazillions??) of flea beetles. In other words, I simply cannot grow healthy brassicas here in the Land of Canola.

(Beneficial insects and plants: the braconid wasp feeds on flea beetles in their larval stage, while fragrant plants like thyme mask the scent of brassicas, effectively hiding them from the beetles.)

I do not write this to vilify conventional farmers. As I said before, my parents are cash-crop farmers. Canola paid for my university education and it largely still pays for the food I eat while I live at home and struggle to break even in my first year of organic vegetable farming. I know how hard-working farmers are, and I know how much they care about their land. I also know it is difficult to make a living as a farmer no matter what you choose to grow, and most farmers are just trying to do their best. It’s not easy to be a producer in a world that expects its food to be cheap and abundant at all times.

But I believe it is important to think critically about a system as big and consequential as our global food system. If humans are going to make it on this planet, we need our food system to work, and we need it to work sustainably without sacrificing other forms of life. Neither organic nor conventional agriculture is doing a perfect job at achieving this. We’ve all got work to do. But as farmers and stewards of the land, we’ve got to remember to take our lead from nature. It knows how to look after itself. Not only that, but it knows how to THRIVE, if only we would let it. In Saskatchewan, we especially need our agriculture to be more diverse. That means crop rotations that are more complex than wheat, peas and canola. It could also mean more cover crops, or the integration of livestock- anything to improve biodiversity and help break the cycle of pests and disease that we currently only know how to combat with synthetic chemicals.

Some large-scale conventional farmers- like Brooks and Jen White from Pierson, MB (pictured below), are already practicing these methods on their integrated bison and mixed grain farm and seeing great success, both in terms of profits and in the health of their land. They won Manitoba’s Outstanding Young Farmers of the Year in 2018. But farms like that are few and far between in Canada. And unfortunately for me, until more farmers follow suit, that devastating army of small and mighty flea beetles is here to stay.