The pocket gopher, commonly known as a mole, prefers privacy. With no defences against predators, it keeps a low profile underground.
Pocket gophers kill plants by eating roots. They also push up large mounds of soil from their tunnels.
One rodent can make 50 mounds a year, and its burrows can extend 240 metres.
The pocket gopher’s subterranean habits make control difficult.
Elton Weich, a retired alfalfa grower from Nebraska, has designed a system that he claims is effective and relatively inexpensive.
According to Weich, the pocket gophers’ mounds of earth on the field should be addressed first.
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“Weich suggested loosening old compact mounds and smoothing them with various types of harrows, a float, a land leveler, or an old rodweeder, combined with a light rolling for stones,” said Les Bohrson, senior agrologist with the Irrigation Crop Diversification Corporation in Swift Current, Sask.
“The objective is to start a pocket gopher control program three days after the field has been smoothed. This is a must, as it pinpoints fresh digging and therefore the location of each individual pest.”
Pocket gopher infestations usually originate in the areas bordering alfalfa fields.
When infield pests are killed with bait or traps, a second migration will soon arrive to take over the burrows.
This is because the older, more experienced rodents have learned they are better protected in ditches, fence lines, road allowances and waste areas.
They live and breed in safe areas, forcing their adolescents to stray into the surrounding fields.
Producers will usually find fewer gophers in the centre of their fields, and a high percentage of the mature gophers along the borders.
New, small-diametre tunnels are dug by the young pocket gophers, and are evident in late summer after young gophers have been booted out, said Bohrson.
Trapping the pocket gopher is essential if producers want to know the size of their problem and the results of their work, said Weich.
Trapping works well but because it takes only one animal at a time, diligence is required.
Placing poison bait is faster because it can kill several pocket gophers a day.
“Baiting pocket gopher burrows correctly is key, because they aren’t like the usual gopher: they create large field mounds by ramping earth up tunnels at a 1:1 slope. This offsets and hides the burrow system from all surface mounds. The complete burrow system, in fact, extends to depths below frost penetration under the alfalfa,” said Bohrson.
Careful probing at a 45-degree angle to locate and trowel out the entry tunnel will expose the main burrow system less than a foot below the surface. Early-morning inspection of all fresh digging makes tunnel warfare easier. Funnel half a cup of bait right down into the main burrow and always plug the tunnel.
“It’s important to level every mound you bait. A tunnel left open after baiting will encourage the gopher to throw the bait and more dirt onto the surface mound while rapidly re-plugging its entry,” said Bohrson.
According to Weich, the most efficient option for producers is establishment, training and part-time support of a custom gopher-control business in their district. He suggests other producers would pay for the specialized service just as they hire pesticide-spraying companies. A two-year battle plan is realistic.
For an information package on the Elton Weich Method of Pocket Gopher Control, contact Bohrson at 306-778-5043. This package includes tools, printed material and the address at which Weich’s recommended zinc phosphide bait can be obtained.
