“When you approach the rootworm as just a problem that has to be solved, you’re not taking into account the animal’s biology,” [Ann Marie] Journey says. “You’re hitting it just at certain points or with certain methods or controls, and you’re not allowing yourself in effect to have a conversation to gain insight back from the rootworms about what it is that makes them successful in any given place. The more you know about what is making them successful, the more you might be able to make their life more complicated.”
Earlier in May, No-Till Farmer posted an article called “5 Ways to Keep the “Billion-Dollar Bug” from Stealing Corn Yields,” which can be found on their website here. It’s based heavily off of the work done by Ann Marie Journey and a presentation she gave at the 2024 National Strip-Tillage Conference (Video here, if you have a Strip Till Farmer account; Audio here if you do not).
This was a refreshing article to us at BASS because none of the suggestions is “Use insecticide.” I’ll spoil the article a bit here:
- Minimize disturbance
- Increase plant diversity
- Keep the soil covered
- Maintain living roots
- Make the rootworm’s life more complicated
I think some of us like to go down rabbit holes of information, so I put together a list of a few more of Dr. Journey’s talks. I haven’t listened to them all yet, so this is my list to come back to as much as anything.:
- Ann Marie Journey talks about soil insects and how the system works – Jon Stevens Maple Grove Farms
- Ann Marie Journey talks about corn root worm – Jon Stevens Maple Grove Farms
- SOIL: Nature’s Answer to Most Questions with Dr. Ann Marie Journey – Pollinator Friendly Alliance
- Earth Chapter 8: Soil Health: Nature’s Medicine with Dr. Ann Marie Journey – Pollinator Friendly Alliance (Note: At least some of slides in the No-Till Farmer article look like updated slides from this presentation)
Enjoy!