GRAPE GRO WING Rodent Control for Vineyards
Grapegrowers learn that eliminating pocket gophers is no simple matter By Paul Franson
t doesn't take dynamite to dispatch gophers—as Bill Murray memorably tried in the movie "Caddyshack"— but ridding a vineyard of pocket gophers can be challenging. Roger Baldwin, University of Cal- ifornia wildlife pest management advisor, visited the UC Davis Oakville Experimen- tal Vineyard in Napa Valley to address practical ways that vineyard managers can deal with the pocket gophers. He dis- cussed the many types of control: baiting with poison, poison gas, explosions and lethal traps. Some of the techniques can help with other rodents including ground squirrels and voles.
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Pocket gophers spend the majority of their time underground.
Predators not effective Owls and hawks are popular sights in a vineyard, but Baldwin said that even
though these birds of prey can eat huge numbers of rodents, they can't keep up with the fecund animals; neither can go-
View video in the Wines & Vines Digital Edition. Watch an expert with Gophers Limited track a gopher burrow and set up a trap in a vineyard.
pher snakes, coyotes, cats or other preda- tors. Voles and ground squirrels are easy targets for avian predators, but gophers spend most of their time underground. The wide wingspans of owls prevent them from reaching between most vine- yard wires.
Baldwin mentioned that flooding can be effective, but few vineyards are now irri- gated with that method, and few growers would be inclined to use precious water
38 Wines & Vines JUne 2012
LEONARDO WEISS
