NOTHING focuses farmers' attention more fully than being sent home from the silos with a full load of grain.
And with harvest complete for another year, farmers in parts of Eyre Peninsula are still shell-shocked at unprecedented high numbers of snails and are not only re-evaluating rotations but determining how to best win the race against snails.
Nathan Little, Port Kenny, is one of many EP farmers who, based on his experiences with field peas and snails last year, will be leaving legumes out of his cropping program until he can get the snails under control.
"I have snails in paddocks where they have never been and I think peas are like a magnet for them – they just seem to love them." Mr Little said. "The snails stripped and skeletonised the pods, leaving the peas held together by just the pod veins. We took a massive hit yield-wise and will be spending still more time and expense cleaning them. Some blokes were lucky enough not to have snails, but they were the exception."
As a response to snail problems across EP, a series of free workshops is planned by the Eyre Peninsula Agricultural Research Foundation, Minnipa Agricultural Centre and the Advisory Board of Agriculture. Set for the end of January, the workshops will look at snail identification and monitoring, baiting and getting the timing right to reduce snail numbers both in crop and before harvest.
Northern & Yorke Region Landcare facilitator Michael Richards says in the past season, snails have been a massive issue in many parts of the State, and even farmers who are experienced in managing high snail populations struggled to keep numbers down in 2011.
"The extended and cool 2010 harvest, damp autumn and the added workload of managing high populations of summer weeds plus the pressure of managing high mice numbers, all placed additional pressure on farmers and therefore reduced the effectiveness of pre-sowing snail control," he said.
In 1999, following a wet season and cool harvest, similar to 2011, snail numbers increased markedly on many Yorke Peninsula farms and this was the catalyst for initiating research into integrated snail management led by Suzanne Charwat for SARDI.
It was also the first year of operation for the Southern Yorke Peninsula Alkaline Soils Group. Mr Richards, former coordinator of the group, said there were only three priority areas that year; "snails, snails and more snails".
"All the priorities had suddenly changed and people were not very confident as the snail numbers suddenly blew out similar to this year," he said. "There was an extended egg-laying this season so there were a lot of small snails, and that is what farmers on EP are seeing; a lot of small snails."
* More in SJ's Jan 12 edition
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