North shore of Lake Ontario | We seldom plant beans into wheat stubble as the slugs can really tear into them. Same goes for canola. They wiped out 1/2 of a 30 acre field of canola a number of years ago. Really didn't know what was happening and my wife and I went over to the field at midnight and the ground was litterly carpeted with slugs. You good actually hear them eating.
We plant corn into wheat stubble and this is what we do. Our wheat is usually underseeded with red clover. Shortly after harvest we rotary mow it and knock down the standing wheat stubble and the chopped straw and the clover. Nice job and you can move right along. Ususally cut about 2" off the ground .(we have few stones).
The clover will grow back again and sometime after the first frost we kill it with roundup.
By spring the field will be almost black as the straw has rotted away.
A good set of trash wipers will move enough trash and dirt away from the row to reduce slug damage. And corn will grow fast enough to get ahead. I guess it will sacrifice those lower leaves to the slugs. You will see the little holes on the lower leaves all year but it doesn't seem to hurt the yield although it's tough to judge when you have no ground worked up..
Ill take a picture when the camera comes back. |
Slugs must be just a local thing........
