Help the environment this Earth Day, which falls on Sunday April 22 this year, by installing insectary plants! These plants attract natural enemies such as lady beetles, lacewings, and parasitic wasps. Natural enemies provide biological pest control and can reduce the need for insecticides. Visit the new UC IPM Insectary Plants webpage to learn how to use these plants to your advantage.

The buzz about insectary plants

Biological control, or the use of natural enemies to reduce pests, is an important component of integrated pest management. Fields and orchards may miss out on this control if they do not offer sufficient...

Spiny buttercup (Ranunculus muricatus) is a non-native plant, that is fairly common, especially in wet areas such as meadows. We also find it in crops, including orchards, pastures, and cereal grain fields. It's both an annual and perennial plant that blooms from March to May, with seed pods that are large and prickly. Though it's pretty with the bright yellow flowers, don't be fooled, as it has a dark side, so should be controlled.

First, according to Dr. Birgit Puschner, UC Davis Vet Med Toxicologist, all buttercups contain ranunculin, though there are differences in species in terms of toxin levels. In pastures, because the plant is bitter, animals simply eat around it. But if ingesting the fresh plant, they...

Yikes, my weed control didn't work!  It's springtime and you're looking at your seedling alfalfa field that you planted late last fall. You have a great stand, but you're not quite satisfied with the level of weed control despite an earlier herbicide application. You still see weeds out there, including bristly oxtongue, thistles, mustard, dandelion, and fiddleneck. You know that weed infestations can weaken young alfalfa plants, retard growth, delay the first cutting, reduce quality, and result in long term damage to crop yield and stand persistence.

The field is still a seedling stand, considered as such until at least the first hay cutting (around the 6-9 leaf stage and a crown is forming). The...

A tough decision in producing alfalfa hay is what to do with a seedling stand that's marginal, at best. Do you keep it, overseed with alfalfa or another forage, or do you replant or alternatively rotate to another crop? If so, when and how?

Mother Nature Strikes!   Sometimes factors beyond our control result in alfalfa stand losses. For example, this past winter, the long dry spell and lack of access to water, stressed seedling development. This, along with freezing temperatures, resulted in seedlings dying. Last year we had too much water, leading to saturated soils, disease problems and stand loss. 

In other situations, poor stands result from poor soil...