Prairie farmers may have lost the battle against gophers even before the snow melts.
For the second year in a row, farmers will not be able to get enough strychnine to control Richardson’s ground squirrels that eat crops and dig up fields.
Cameron Wilk, Saskatchewan’s pesticide specialist, estimates his province’s farmers will get about 15 percent of the liquid strychnine concentrate they need to control the pests.
John Bourne, Alberta Agriculture’s pest control specialist, said Alberta will be lucky if it gets a single shipment.
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“There is no strychnine for emergency registration and no strychnine for ready-to-use bait,” said Bourne.
After years of protest from farmers, Health Canada’s Pest Management Review Agency granted emergency registration of the liquid strychnine concentrate in 2000 to help farmers control the explosion in the Richardson’s ground squirrel population, commonly called gophers. It was the first time liquid strychnine was allowed since it was pulled off the market in 1993.
Three years ago, Alberta farmers used 60,000 units of strychnine to mix with fresh bait to poison the rodents. A unit is a 250 millilitre bottle of two percent liquid concentrate that produces enough bait for one to two kilograms of grain. A few kernels of grain are sprinkled in front of each gopher hole.
Last year the war in Afghanistan and continuing unrest in the Middle East created a worldwide shortage of strychnine, and the supply situation is no better this year.
“Supplies are extremely tight,” said Brian Peirce, technical director for Nu-Gro Corp., the Prairies’ main supplier of strychnine.
Continuing unrest along the India and Pakistan border where much of the strychnine is harvested has stopped the supply. Strychnine is made from the nuts or bark of the nux vomica plant.
Bourne said there are alternatives for farmers. There has been some success with an anticoagulant called Rozal. The bait must be offered to gophers repeatedly over two to three weeks to be effective.
Zink phosphide has been used in the United States with some success. Bourne said this poison requires that rodents be conditioned to eat the bait.
He does not recommend the unregistered gases or explosives that are touted as effective controls for the rodents.
