Mouse plague fears in five mainland Australian state grain crops in spring

The mouse problem is dormant at the moment, but what are the experts predicting for the coming weeks?

Grain growers in all mainland states need to be preparing for a potential mouse plague outbreak in spring.

Grain growers are being urged to remain vigilant in coming weeks over fears mice will emerge from burrows in paddocks to create havoc as crops move into the heading or podding stage of plant growth.

CSIRO research officer Steve Henry said it was very difficult to predict overwinter survival of mice.

“Just because it is cold and wet, we shouldn’t assume the mice are gone,” Mr Henry said.

Farmers need to get out of their utes and walk through their developing crops to look for signs of damage.

“Then they need to be prepared to bait before there is a whole lot of other food in the system: so before crops are podded up or before they get to that grain fill stage where mice will climb and chew into heads.”

Mr Henry said farmers should bait their crops with double strength baits when mice emerge.

He said trials had shown very positive results using the double strength 50g/kg zinc phosphide baits.

The warning comes as reports emerge that mouse activity has increased in Western Australia in recent days and fears farmers face problems in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland in spring.

Mark Schilling, of AG Schilling in South Australia, said he had bait sales enquiries from NSW, Victoria and SA during the past week.

“This hasn’t gone away yet and I don’t think it is going to go away this year,” Mr Schilling said.

Bait ingredient importer Brenton Wilhelm, of Wilhelm Rural, said a mouse outbreak across the five mainland states at the same time was “virtually unheard of” in Australian agriculture.

Mr Wilhelm said some WA farmers were already reporting activity in their canola crops, which were well ahead of crop development in the eastern states.

He said what might exacerbate the problem if a plague erupted was zinc phosphide ingredient ordered for shipment to Australia being stuck on wharves in India due to shipping issues.

He had a container of highest purity zinc phosphide sitting on a wharf in Mumbai for the past month.

Animal Control Technologies principal Linton Staples said he had a container of zinc phosphide ingredient on a ship which was offloaded in Madagascar recently.

But Dr Staples said his company had plenty of bait in Australian and had recently slowed production because it had nowhere to store it.

He was receiving modest enquiry for bait at the moment but mice were largely dormant in the eastern states and not breeding.

Dr Staples said the wet cold winter might have killed off some mice that survived the massive baiting program in autumn.

“But farmers don’t go out and check paddocks when it is wet and cold,” he said.

“The mice are a foot underground.

“They can survive severe environmental conditions much better than anyone thinks.

“We don’t think these areas are out of trouble yet.”

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