Landcorp - Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit

Our initiative includes sharing newinformation and ideas with other farmerswho are equally keen to knock back aproblem comparable with grass grub, thatscourge of New Zealand agriculture indecades past.Each captured beetle is identified byspecies and sex. The festiva species isthe more common, with a brown stripedown the back. A second species,setosa, has a distinctive gold stripe onits back and is less common.Far left: Jessica Shaw clears oneof many traps three times weeklybetween October and Februaryto monitor beetle numbers andspecies, and the grass and soiltypes they are most attractedto. The winged adult beetleshit the upright perspex sheetand fall into the pan of waterbelow. Jessica extracts eachfor identification under themicroscope. The biology graduatefrom the University of Canterburyjoined Landcorp in November2008 to undertake the researchon the Cape Foulwind complex.33