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Agronomic consultant, Greg Condon (Grassroots Agronomy), reports black Portuguese millipedes being found sporadically across a few paddocks in the South West Slopes district of New South Wales. Two emerging canola crops have experienced feeding damage, one near Wagga Wagga, and the other near Henty. Both crops have been sown into wheat stubble. Millipedes have chewed the stems and leaves of cotyledons and young plants. Greg says the damage has been mostly concentrated to areas containing carryover weeds from last year.
Agronomist, Tim Pilkington (Elders), has observed millipedes in a few canola crops south west of Ararat, in the Western district of Victoria. Millipede numbers are relatively low and there has been no observable feeding damage to date. This year, stubbles across many paddocks in the Western district have been burnt to remove refuges for slugs. This practice has likely reduced millipede populations as well. Monitoring of canola paddocks with high numbers of millipedes is recommended.
Black Portuguese millipedes (Ommatoiulus moreletii) have emerged as a sporadic, but significant, pest of canola in the last 5 years. This is almost certainly linked to paddocks with high stubble loads and minimum tillage. Black Portuguese millipedes have a smooth, cylindrical body made up of 50 segments when fully developed. Adults are 30-45 mm long, dark grey to black in colour and have 2 pairs of legs on each body segment. When disturbed they either curl up in a tight spiral or thrash about trying to escape. Millipedes congregate in large numbers and are quite mobile, especially after autumn rainfall.
Although black Portuguese millipedes will attack canola seedlings, there are many instances where high numbers of millipedes are present in a paddock but no crop damage occurs. Feeding damage is relatively rare because millipedes predominantly live off organic matter such as leaf litter, decaying wood and fungi. If millipedes are found within paddocks, a night time visit will help determine if they are feeding on canola plants - as millipedes are mainly active and feed at night.
Click here for further information on millipedes.
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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.
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