Marty Colbert and Peter and Des Clarke are baiting slugs at Nhill

AgriBusiness Consulting Group assessor Marty Colbert, Nhill, lends a hand on Peter and Des Clarke's family farm and has found slugs in their canola crop.

Mr Colbert found the slugs after noticing damage in a satellite image and placing baits.

"We're chasing a big batch of slugs at the moment which is unheard of," he said.

"We identified the problem last week and we can see where the problem is.

"It's walking out from the paddock next to it which is our neighbours' paddock that had canola in it last year."

Mr Colbert said the slugs had taken out about six to seven hectares of the Clarke's canola crop, but they caught the problem early.

"I go to paddocks all over the district, over 100,000 acres, and I've never run into slugs north of Naracoorte, (SA), or Edenhope," he said.

"What we've identified in a paddock is a minor issue but they've taken out a good six or seven hectares.

"In a good year that's 15 tonnes of canola."

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The Grains Research and Development Corporation released a guide in 2022 describing main slug pest species, which included the black keeled slug, grey field slug and brown field slug.

Slugs breed during ideal moisture and temperature conditions in winter and spring when soil surfaces are wet.

The Clarkes were experiencing a bumper start to the cropping season with high soil moisture profiles and keeping to the region's average rain totals.

Mr Colbert said the Clarke's crop operation focused on data decision making and he used drones to measure fertiliser and seeding rates, create yield maps, biomass maps, and soil tests.

"We've mapped and measured it, I can see it with the satellite and that's a new approach we're taking from now on," he said.

"It's to identify and quantify our mistakes, because we all make them.

"But the worst part of making a mistake would be not learning from them, and as you're fixing them you might find your successes and build on them from there."

Peter said other on-farm pest management challenges included white snails, lucerne flea and red-legged earth mites.

"The slugs are no different in the fact that we've put an insecticide on all the scruff because we'll have other bugs out there," he said.

"We know we've got an issue with snails that we're monitoring, and now it turns out we have a problem with slugs as well.

"It's another introduced pest that we're addressing, which we can't pass that cost onto the next person."