She’s bugged every day and loves every minute of it

Driving the roads of Avoyelles passing the bean fields, the tall lush cane, emerald corn stalks it’s a joy to see agriculture flourishing. What we don’t see is a tiny world of insects and bugs creeping about the lushness.

Maci West, originally from Bunkie, sees them. She knows what to look for and what to do about them.

She’s an undergrad studying biology at LSUA and chose to work for a private company Direct Agronomics, LLC, who specializes in crop consulting and field scouting services. The company is owned by Lucas Pitre and based in Ville Platte.

Maci’s husband, Logan, is a farmer with acreage of rice, crawfish and soybeans. Pitre consults for his fields and this is where Maci met him.

“Basically, I take notes and report back to him and he sees what should be done about the pest.”

She added, “maybe it’s the same pest but different threshold and that’s when Lucas tells the farmer what chemical to spray.”

A pest threshold is the specific population where control action must be taken to prevent economic harm to the crop.

Maci is grateful to be working under Pitre because, “he’s state tested and certified in weeds, pests and soil and he’s a great teacher to learn from.

“I’m getting real world experience,” she remarked which will go hand in hand with her end goal, which is to work as an agronomist for an Ag company.

“The soil is better in Avoyelles for sugar cane, it’s good red soil,” which is perfect for cane.

According to Maci, the cane in the AP “is doing wonderful.”

She knows all about the soil because every day of the work week, she’s out trodding through Avoyelles fields looking, inspecting, searching for pests.

“We check thousands of acres a day and work 12-13 hours, which starts in the early morning.”

Because of being in sugar cane with the sunrise, Maci has created the perfect ‘uniform’ to wear. “The dew is still on the plants and third year cane can be 10 to 12 ft. tall, so to keep dry I wear waders like duck hunters do and a good rain jacket.”

Of course, at some point it heats up and her perfect-for-early-morning-uniform gets super hot.

Rain does not stop her work in the fields. “Private consultants work 24/7,” she said, “as long as it’s safe, we are out there.

“Farmers are educated in what’s going on and present in their fields, they hire consultants to really get in there and check.”

Sugar cane pests

The big pest for cane is the borer, which makes the cane weak. The worms bore into the stalk and basically use it as their Piccadilly.

“I will pick a row, look at the stalk for the scar a borer leaves then cross over rows. You just walk.”

Usually she spends 8-10 minutes on a field following a big radius. “We check front, back and middle; we never just check one spot.”

Maci commented on how a new pest has shown up this season. “It’s the pasture mealy bug and it likes sugar cane leaves where it also lives.”

Maci said, “It’s so new everyone’s trying to figure it out what to do because it has wiped out some farmers’ crops.”

She has firm belief, though, that Ag scientists will find a way to control it.

Hers is a very rewarding job, Maci remarked, “I make sure the ground is ready for the seed and I help farmers take care of it. They will report back at harvest and I get to see the results of my work.”

As the current pasture mealy bug demonstrates, “there will always be new bugs, which makes agriculture different every year.

Maci has taken a class in entomology (study of insects) at LSUA and added, “LSUA has a great Ag program. I’m learning in the classroom and now it’s easier with hands-on where I get a well-rounded