- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
Just published!
The recently updated version of the publication Pest Notes: Pocket Gophers has been added to the UC IPM website. http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7433.html
Updated information about life cycle and control methods. Check it out!
- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
Soil solarization is a method home gardeners and farmers can use to manage soilborne pests such as weeds, disease pathogens, nematodes and insects. Solarization can reduce help reduce pesticides used to control these pests.
Soil solarization is simple: prepare the site, water it a bit, then cover the soil with clear plastic for an extended period of time to allow the sun to heat the soil to temperatures lethal to a wide range of pests.
Learn more about this process in our recently updated Pest Notes: Soil Solarization for Gardens & Landscapes, by authors Jim Stapleton, Cheryl Wilen, and Richard Molinar of the University of California Cooperative...
- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
Subject: End of the Oriental Fruit Fly Quarantine – Sacramento and Yolo...
- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
As written in my blog post from 2 days ago, I found carpenter ants in my house recently and decided to call a pest control company to help manage them.
Yesterday, the field representative from the pest control company (both of whom will remain unnamed) showed up as scheduled, the day after I submitted a service request. Prompt service, which I appreciated! I had collected some of the perpetrators for him, and had both dead and live specimens on hand for his expert ID and advice.
The job of the licensed structural field rep is to identify the pest. I already knew what I had, having some prior knowledge of ants and having used the UC IPM
- Author: Karey Windbiel-Rojas
It's cold out right now in Sacramento so we don't typically see many ants roaming around outdoors much. Indoors where it's warmer, can be a different story however.
About a year ago, I started seeing a few random large ants wandering around my house. Because it wasn't a trail of ants that I could see going to any particular food source, I wasn't too concerned. Random ant? No big deal. Then they were gone with the cold weather.
As the weather warmed up, I noticed in one bedroom closet, some droppings that looked like a mixture of chewed stucco, various insect body parts, and some black bits of something. I wasn't seeing ants at this time, just this debris. What was causing it? Could it be carpenter ants?
Two...