 Hi, my name is Stephen Vantassel. I'm program coordinator for Wildlife Damage Management at the School of Natural Resources University in Nebraska-Lincoln. We're here in Alfa Field in Northeastern Nebraska. This is prime pocket gofer country because pocket gofers love Alfa fields. We're going to be beginning with talking about how to identify a pocket gofer mound. We're to find that plug because the plug is critical for finding to get into that main burrow system where you need to be setting your traps or putting your toxicant depending on which method you want to use. So why don't we begin looking at a pocket gofer mound. Before we can begin talking about controlling a pocket gofers, we have to identify the mounds correctly so that we're not confusing a mull mound with a pocket gofer mound. We have a representative pocket gofer mound right here and you'll notice something distinctive about the shape and that is it's an all-blown shape or what's called a fan or kidney shape. Notice the sort of teardrop design here and if you look carefully you'll notice the plug. You won't be able to see this on all of the mound but what happens is the pocket gofers coming out of the ground at a 45 degree angle and he's throwing the dirt. This is why I've positioned myself on the fan side of the mound so that way when I take my probe I can dig probe down to find where it's where I get less resistance and that's where the pocket gofers tunnel is and you can see how my screwdriver here slides very quickly. If you don't have a screwdriver such as this this is probably a 12 inch screwdriver you can buy other probes like this and simply probe around to find where you get down to that main tunnel but I want you to be sure that you understand how a pocket gofer mound works is that one side of the mound is going to have a lot more soil than the other and the reason is the pocket gofer doesn't throw dirt behind himself he only pushes it out this particular way so when we're trying to identify where that lateral tunnel is we'd want to make sure we position ourselves on the flat on the larger side and then probe this way to find that spot where we get less resistance and you just keep probing till you find where that hole is. There it is. There's our hole. This is called the lateral tunnel and we dig that out until we get down to the main tunnel and that may be down 12 to 14 inches depending on the soil conditions in your area and you keep digging until you find the main tunnel. And the main tunnel is going to branch off in two directions because of the other mounds here I'm expecting the main run to be somewhere in here. Now that we have the lateral tunnel opened down to the main tunnel which is located here we have two options to control these pocket gofers one of them is with traps of course or we have the option of using toxicants. I'm going to begin talking about setting a trap here and again this is for trapping the lateral the lateral tunnel. So this is a DK1 and I'm going to take this trap to set it here quickly. Notice I have a wire cable do not use string because pocket gofers are trapped to conchue through that has to be a wire cable and then we take the bend the wire around so now we have it set it's not sort of configured yet because I got to move the trigger back to it's just about ready to let the let the dog go this piece here is called a dog. Now my trap is set I put it down times first again I want to try to get a feel for where that main tunnel is and I want the trap to be placed just prior to entering the main tunnel. then I can take the wire with my surveyor's flag and secure it down. Now some of you may have heard that we need to cover this hole the research that I've done shows that there's no statistical difference between effectiveness with leaving the tunnel open or leaving it closed. The only reason why I would close this tunnel is if I was worried about children getting access or pets having access but we're out here in the middle of an alfalfa field no one's going to be walking through here so I'm not worried about someone being injured but if I was in a more urban area I would cover this to protect children and pets even though there's no bait someone may hurt themselves by putting their foot into this hole not they're not looking where they're going but that's all there is and I would just simply check this each day. Now we're not suggesting one variety of trap more is better than another it's a lot of it's just personal preference in your own particular interests. I just picked the DK1 my research used the DK1 as well as the McCabby this is the McCabby trap this is the DK1 I believe this is called the easy set there are a whole host of pocket go for pocket go for traps available they all they all work they all have their pros and cons and different cost points it's just a matter of personal preference but again the process for setting them all learn about how to do that but setting them all into the tunnel is exactly the same you just simply put tines down first and then make sure you stake it properly with your surveyor's flag or something more substantive and always use a wire not a cord because you don't want the pocket go for biting through it. Now in the lateral tunnel we can also use toxicans rather than setting traps and here we have a zinc phosphide bait as well as phosphine phosphine tablets that can be placed this is for a fumigation member you need a fumigation management plan when you're using this particular product but I want to focus here on the toxic baits again you'd want to dig out that lateral tunnel down to the main tunnel and then you'd put a teaspoon of oats treated oats onto your spoon you would take that down into the main tunnel put it pour it over and then you would close the burrow making sure that you don't cover the oats that's critical because if you bury the bait the pocket go for won't be able to find it you would also want to make sure you're doing this during a time when the soil is dry and you're not anticipating any rain in the next several days zinc phosphide is moisture sensitive and so if you're worried about moisture in your crop land you'd want to go to one of the anti-coagulant baits that's available I believe it's di-facinome is available for controlling pocket gophers or it might be chlorifacinome but you'd want to go with a waxed bait for the pocket gopher rather than using zinc phosphide if moisture is a concern in your area we talked about putting traps and bait down the lateral tunnel to the main tunnel now we're going to do a different show you a different process of what's called hand baiting going to the main tunnel directly now the key to finding the main tunnel is to recognize how pocket gophers build their tunnel systems as we said before the lateral tunnel comes off at a 45 degree angle from the main tunnel so you'll notice a mound here and a mound here these are crushed by tire tracks because they recently mowed today but we know that the main tunnel has got to be in between these so if we probe down with our narrow end this has a narrow end and a fatter end we go down the narrow end see how it dropped that show usually we made the main we found the main tunnel then we'd flip it over widen it out and then we take our spoon with toxicant pour it down to the hole then kick it shut that's basically all you do you just keep doing that according to the label and you'd put that fresh make sure you watch when you're using zinc phosphide make sure the soil is dry that you're not expecting rain anytime soon you'll notice I'm wearing the nitrile gloves this time the reason is because I'd be in closer proximity to the poison using this particular technique than I was using the lateral tunnels but I didn't the label did not require me to have nitrile gloves when I was using a spoon but I'm wearing them now just to sort of remind you that some of your labels will require you to wear nitrile gloves when using that particular toxicant to save the step from using the spoon there's another device uses the same principle but the toxicant is inside this storage chamber and when you press the button it comes out the bottom so again we push down push down find that spot where you get down into the main tunnel because we notice we have a mound here we have a mound here we find it lift it up slightly push the button make sure enough toxicant comes out pull it out kick it closed voila we have now baited this particular spot with for pocket gophers so let's summarize what we have for pocket gopher control number one we want to identify the mounds correctly they should be oblong kidney shaped or fan shaped we want to find the plug which will be on the opposite end of the large pile of soil secondly we want to find the main runs which will be in between the rows of pocket gopher mounds secondly we want to be sure that we are using the toxicants appropriately or the traps appropriately if we're using zinc phosphide it needs to be done during dry conditions if we're using an anti-coagulant we can use it in moisture there is also if we're using fumigants such as phosphoxin we want to make sure we're using our have our fumigation management plan established prior to our using the particular poison and make sure if using traps you properly stake your traps with a surveyor's flag securely against with a metal wire check your traps regularly and you'll find you'll have trapping success or poisoning success as long as you're determined and find those fresh mounds