Spring has sprung!
All of nature is coming out of its winter slumber and that includes pests of tree nuts.
If you're like me, by now you should be exhausted from all the late winter/early spring prep work you’ve been doing. Feels like harvest!
We have been working hard the last few months getting ready for the warmer weather and the resulting spike in pest activity. It’s critical to understand that the most effective pest prevention tasks are done BEFORE you see pest activity.
The shift from cold to warm temperatures triggers the pests’ seasonal patterns.
Moth species will start their first flight, beetles will come out of their winter harborages and start flight, rodent litters will leave their Winter nests, all sorts of ag pests surrounding our facilities will come in waves toward the plant, and so on.
Our work started immediately after the huller/shellers finished for the season with a focus on getting the hull piles removed from the site before the temperatures reached 75 degrees. Then a specialized treatment of the soil where the piles were to eliminate remnant population.
By then, we had all the new crop fumigated and safely tucked in their warehouses, so we re-fumigated all the old crop year nuts and byproducts. We also did our “off-season” projects like sprayer maintenance and such.
Of course, we did interior focused treatments and exterior treatments to prevent ingress. We installed Trece’s CIDETRAK to prevent IMM infestation, changed out all the bulbs in our light systems and implemented a creative IGR strategy.
Now, we are re-thinking all our programs based on the data we collected over the last year and making improvements.
All this while maintaining the normal daily tasks like fumigating outbound loads, inspections, servicing our monitoring devices, training, software upgrades, etc.
Wow, no wonder I’m wore out! We still have a lot going on and can’t rest on our laurels, however, I am going to do a little fishing this weekend 😉.
The key is, executing a well thought out strategy based on risk, science and data. Such a strategy requires intrinsic knowledge and experience.
Working on the front lines of the war of nature vs. tree nut facilities is our great pleasure. If you need help developing your risk-based strategy and mitigation plan, give me a call directly. My cell is 559-513-4317.