Wireworms eating through P.E.I. potatoes

A handful of potato growers along P.E.I.’s south shore are battling a tiny worm that could wipe out their crops.

The number of wireworms found in Island potatoes has been increasing over the past few years.

”[The afflicted potatoes] have little holes in them, and they grow scabs over the holes quite often,” grower Rit van Nieuwenhuyzen of Vernon River told CBC News Friday.

At first, van Nieuwenhuyzen didn’t know what was attacking the potatoes in some of his family’s fields, but he has recently become all too familiar with the wireworm, as he has watched it eat through hundreds of acres of spuds.

“A lot of it is you just don’t know what to expect,” he said. “You plant, you do everything right, you have good seed, and at the end of it, your potatoes are full of worms. And this is by far our biggest problem.”

To make matters worse, Agriculture Canada is phasing out phorate, the one insecticide that has been effective against the pest. It will be prohibited as of 2012 because it is toxic to birds and fish.

Researchers at Agriculture Canada are looking at other ways of controlling wireworms. Dr. Christine Noronha is planting alternate crops the worms don’t like, including brown mustard, in the years fields aren’t growing potatoes. The plan is to starve the pests.

“We have three big fields, which are over 20-acre (8.1-hectare) fields that we are doing it in,” said Noronha.

“We know that there is a problem in those fields. And my hope is that it will break the cycle so that they’re not laying any eggs.”

Noronha said it will take a few years before researchers know whether or not the cycle has been broken and whether they have a solution to offer farmers.