In the fall of 2016, Meghan Vankosky had an “aha” moment.
Vankosky, an Agriculture Canada entomologist, was conducting a grasshopper survey in a crop of field peas in Western Canada. The crop was already combined but she noticed a large number of adult pea leaf weevils, feeding on volunteer peas at the edge of the field.
In that moment, she had her idea.
“That made me think. Maybe this is a way we could reduce the population (of weevils),” said Vankosky, who works for Ag Canada in Saskatoon and specializes in pests of pulse and oilseed crops.