The City of Regina will once again be spraying for cankerworms this summer, but are cutting back their spraying efforts.
During a busier year for cankerworms, the city would traditionally spray 30,000 trees.
City spokesperson Russell Eirich said cankerworm numbers are below average.
“However we are seeing some pockets where cankerworms are occurring,” Eirich said. “All in all we’re expecting that we’re going to treat just under 6,000 trees this year, so again it’s going to be a very small program.”
Eirich said this is still not a city-wide program.
“If you think of an area like Rosemont, we’re not going to spray each and every single street, we’re actually selecting a few streets within there because some blocks are okay, some blocks aren’t, so we’re actually going more on a block by block determination.”
The Worminator is out spraying for cankerworms near Kinsmen Park North #yqr #sask #BuzzOnBugs pic.twitter.com/55bvFBqbVY
— Ryan McNally (@RyanE_McNally) June 11, 2019
Eirich said Regina sees a lot of variation with their cankerworm numbers, with the city currently in the middle of a decline.
“It holds down at a bottom level for about four or five years, we’re kind of getting towards the end of that, and now we’re starting to see that we’re getting a couple pockets here and there, so now you’re going to start to see those cankerworm numbers will dramatically increase over the next two-three years after this year.”
Eirich also said mosquito numbers are still low, with the city reporting five mosquitoes per trap. Crews are busy managing the gopher population in the city.
