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The Independent, Canadian Statesman Weekender, Bowmanville, Saturday, September 11,1993 5 Pest Management Program a Huge Success It's Back!!! 5.8%" FINANCING* UP TO 48 MONTHS '93 ALTIMA DARE TO COMPARE • Accord • Camry • 626 Includes air conditioning and driver's side air bag. SALE HS» $10,874.* "$16,990* 93 MAXIMA '93 PATHFINDER! S ED $22,490.* SAVE A COOL $2500. |p rmm XE with sport and power packages. $23,995.* NOW ONLY * 5.8% financing is available for up to 48 months O.A.C. on Sentra GS, Maxima, Altima and Pathfinder. Example $10,000 over 48 months at 5,8% is $233.93/month, cost of borrowing is $1228.64. Freight and PDE ($590) taxes, license extra. After a summer spent peering at creepy crawlers through a microscope, microscope, field scout Linda Heeringa is ready to go back to college. For the past three months, she has been keeping tabs on the pest populations populations in a dozen apple orchards around Durham for the Ministry of Agriculture. The Integrated Pest Management Program has been operating operating locally for 12 years and is designed to help farmers cut back on pesticide use. by Lorraine Mantredo beneficial insects who prey on the de- Linda Heeringa has been on the structive pests to build up in an or- look-out for bugs all summer. chard. For the past 16 weeks, she's been "So eventually, biological control employed as a field scout with a pest will be more prevalent than pesticide management program run by the Min- control in orchards." istry of Agriculture. For the most part, pesticides are One aspect of her job was taking very specific to the pests they are inregular inregular head-counts of unwelcome in- tended to control, sects at a dozen apple orchards around And the newer chemical controls Durham. bio-degrade faster and are less harm- The Integrated Pest Management ful to other living creatures, Heeringa (IPM) Program is partly funded by said. the Environmental Youth Corps and is She knows of one orchard operator intended to help farmers cut down on who has introduced beneficial mites to pesticide use, she says. control the European red mite popula- This way, beneficial bugs can' tion. thrive, and keep the population of More and more, she has seen an indamaging indamaging bugs in check. It's "The crease in parasitic wasps. These wasps way nature intended," Linda says. occur naturally and help control the "Monitoring and scouting tech- tentiform leaf miner population, niques are used in the IPM program to For her research into scab disease, limit the amount of pesticides used in she used the same techniques, inspectée inspectée production of fruits and vegeta- ing a number of leaves, blcs," she explained. Scab disease in advanced stages "I spent an hour every week in coats the skin of the fruit with a black, each orchard looking for pests and fungus-like growth. Farmers generally diseases that can harm apples and apply a fungicide approved by the cause the fruit to be unmarketable or Food and Dmg administration, reduced in numbers and size." By harvest time, the residue of the From the first day on the job, she's fungicide has degraded, Heeringa had her eyes peeled for two of the says. most common and damaging pcsts-the Researchers arc in the process of European red mite and the tentiform hybridizing scab-resistant varieties of leaf miner. apples. Although evidence of these minia- Growing the new variety may be lure invaders can often be spotted more expensive at first, but it will with the naked eye, I-Iccringa conduct- save in the long run on sprays and cn- cd her weekly census through a micro- vironmcntal impact, Heeringa says, scope to get precise figures. _ Other scouts with the Integrated She inspected a sampling of 50 Pest Management Program have been leaves on a weekly basis from, both monitoring harmful insect populations the Empire and Delicious varieties un- that attack strawberry, com, carrot and der her microscope to determine if the potato crops, number of active mites exceeded ac- The last stage of Hccringa's tenn ccptablc threshold limits. _ was a harvest assessment. "The farmer only sprays if the in- She had to look for evidence of sect (population) is above a certain moths, maggots, caterpillars and sev- number. oral diseases. She would also look for different She has seen art extremely low inlife inlife stages and find cgg-to-adult ratios. cidcncc of any of them in her or- "Somc insecticides kill more eggs chards. than adults," she said. This is Linda Hccringa's third Years ago, fanners used to spray summer with the 12-ycar-old pro- cvcry 7 or 10 days with harsh chcmi- gram. cals whether it was needed or not, "It's neat to see how the program Heeringa said. has improved since I've started," she Based on figures she collected this said, growing season, some farmers haven't Linda Heeringa returns to Mohawk had to spray at all for the mites. College in Hamilton this fall to carry Cutting down on the amount of on with her Medical Lab Technology pesticides allows the population of studies. Best Selection! f NISSAN! 1300 Dundas Street East, Whitby 668-6828 "Serving Durham Since 1960" z o DUNDAS ST. E. z £l -tff DC UJ D HWY. 401 V) * u ~Tr <\ F H NISSAN Branch 178 (Bowmanville) Royal Canadian Legion LEGION WEEK September 19 to September 25 Sunday, September 19 FREE Corn and Hot Dogs Sunday at Noon Roast Beef Dinner at 6:00 p.m. Refreshments at 5:00 p.m. Tickets for Dinner $ 10 each Monday, September 20 Open Euchre 7:30 p.m. in the Club Room Tuesday, September 21 Open Crib 7:30 p.m. in the Club Room Wednesday, September 22 Bingo - at 7:30 p.m. in the Upstairs Hall Friday September 24 Meat Roll in the Club Room at 8:00 p.m, followed by entertainment at 9:00 p.m. Saturday,September 25 Dance 9-1 a.m. Free Admission Public Welcome to all events