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Consultant, Felicity Pritchard (PACE), says mice cause damage to crops in several ways, depending on the crop stage and type. Mice will dig up and consume newly sown seed of most crops, which results in poor or failed establishment. Felicity says the seeds of many pulse crops have a high nutritional value and this can result in higher fertility rates and a faster build up of mice populations. Mice often follow crop rows and dig up seeds along the way. Under high mice densities, as much as 5% of grain seed can be consumed per night. In canola, damage is more often seen above ground as direct chewing on young plants. This may include complete removal of the cotyledons, which effectively kills the plant because it removes the apical meristem. It is common to observe circular patches of missing crop, or strips missing along paddock edges where there is adjacent cover (e.g. treelines).
When cereals are at the tillering stage, mice have a tendency to chew through the first node, and one mouse can affect many plants. Later in the year mice climb stems, and can drop whole heads (usually at the milky stage in cereals), or remove seeds from the heads. For crops such as canola and lupins, mice can chew on pods and potentially cause significant yield losses. Windrowed crops provide mice with a good shelter source and also allow easy access to grain or seedpods for mice to feed on. Other problems posed by mice are contamination of grain stores and haystacks.
What is PestFacts?
PestFacts south-eastern keeps growers and advisers informed about invertebrate pests and beneficials in broadacre crops and pastures during the winter-cropping season in Victoria and southern New South Wales.
PestFacts south-eastern is run through IPMforGrains: Best Practice Insect Pest Management, a project delivered by the National Pest Information Network (cesar, DPIRD, QDAF, NSW DPI, and SARDI). This project aims to provide grain growers and advisors with information on invertebrate grain pest occurrence and equip industry with the knowledge needed to implement integrated pest management practices. This initiative is a GRDC investment and includes in-kind contributions from all project partner organisations.
We need your reports
PestFacts is produced on an ʻas-needsʼ basis and relies upon pest observations and field reports from our subscribers. If you have recently observed invertebrate pests (or beneficial species) in broadacre crops, please contact us to report your observations.
Agricultural invertebrate identification
If you are a grower or agronomist in Victoria or NSW working with broadacre crops or pastures, we can assist you with identifying invertebrates found on farms at no cost. Please contact us for identification help.
PestFacts map
PestFacts map is an interactive tool that allows users to search and view historical pest reports across Victoria and NSW. The map is updated with each issue of PestFacts to include new reports.
How to acknowledge PestFacts?
With appropriate acknowledgement, cesar grants permission to reproduce information taken directly from PestFacts. To cite PestFacts: “PestFacts south-eastern (<<enter date published>>). cesar pty ltd.”
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