Giant snails and tiny insects threaten the South’s rice and crawfish farms

Giant snails, tiny insects threaten rice, crawfish farms - American Press

Josh Courville has harvested crawfish his whole life, but these days, he’s finding a less welcome catch in some of the fields he manages in southern Louisiana. Snails. Big ones. For every crawfish Courville dumps out of a trap, three or four snails clang onto the boat’s metal sorting table. About the size of a baseball when fully grown, apple snails stubbornly survive all kinds of weather in fields, pipes and drainage ditches and can lay thousan…

Giant snails and tiny insects threaten the South's rice and crawfish farms

Farmers in Louisiana are going toe-to-toe with some nasty enemies: apple snails that clog crawfish traps while laying millions of bubblegum-colored eggs and tiny bugs called delphacids that can wipe out half a rice field while spreading plant disease.

LSU scientists working to lessen impact of invasive apple snails on crawfish farms

The apple snail, one of the most invasive species in the Gulf region, is a major nuisance for crawfish farmers, and with crawfish season only a few months away, LSU scientists are working to lessen their impact.