PACIFIC AGRICULTURE SHOW | SECTION
Five-Year Study Launched to Study Blueberry Munching Voles At first glance, the blueberry farm in Ladner, BC seemed just fine, other than some discoloured leaves. Then the farm owner went out and tugged on one of the bushes.
Photo by Vasiliy Vishnevskiy | Dreamstime.com
To his shock, the bush came right out of the ground with no resistance at all ... and no roots! Researcher Bill Ransome says while everything looked fine above ground, below the farmer’s feet hundreds of tiny but voracious Townsend Voles were devouring the roots of his blueberry bushes. “He lost so much that he has to put poison out,” says Ransome. “It’s in the several thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, and he just can’t handle that level of damage.” Last year Ransome presented some of his preliminary findings at the Pacific Agriculture Show from a pilot program of research into fruit damage from the Townsend Vole. That initial research showed a serious enough problem that Ransome, an instructor at BCIT, is now leading a
five-year, in-depth study into Voles and berry damage. Ransome was the lead investigator in a previous study which focused on the Microtus genus of Vole, which primarily goes after tree roots in the BC Interior. “Our studies have gone back over a long period of time,” Ransome says. “Voles can cause millions of dollars damage in forested areas around Kelowna and Kamloops. There was an outbreak of
voles there, and they ate a large proportion of the trees on tree farms in that area.” In the berry farms of the Lower Mainland Ransome has again donned his detective’s cap, investigating the activities of the Townsend Vole. Very little is known about this species, and even less about its long-term impact on berry crops. “We know there is damage, and that some producers
are seeing a huge amount of damage,” he says. “But, why do some producers have high amounts of damage and other producers right next door have low amounts of damage? Why are some years worse than others, and what drives the vole to go after berry crops some years and not other years? “So far, no one has really studied these voles in an agricultural setting.” Townsend voles live underground and are not often seen above ground. The best evidence of their presence are the entrances to vole tunnels, and the ‘runways’ or trails that lead from one tunnel to another. “There have been plots done where it was revealed there were up to 800 voles on a single hectare, and there was one in the forest with 1200 voles per hectare,” says Ransome. “The fact is, we really don’t know what’s going on under the ground, but we need to find out.”■
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