Flea beetles are being seen in unusually large numbers this spring. Lesley Lubenow, a cropping systems specialist at the NDSU Langdon Research Extension Center, says this is biggest flea beetle population boom she’s ever seen. “We were really cold for a long time. Flea beetles are triggered to emerge when soil temperatures reach a certain temperature,” says Lubenow. “We hit that on a hot day and it started a mass awakening from dormancy.” Lubenow says farmers need to be scouting canola fields every day. “Farmers should look at defoliation. The threshold is about 10 to 15 percent.”
