- Author: Saoimanu Sope
Although training is required to become a University of California Master Gardener, the benefits of gardening can be experienced by anyone and everyone.
“As long as you're willing to get your hands dirty,” said Laurie Menosky, a UC Master Gardener volunteer in Orange County, “you can learn to grow all sorts of things.”
In early April, Menosky partnered with ETN Medical Infusion (a clinic in Orange County) and the Sustainability Program for Student Housing at UC Irvine to teach students how to grow tomatoes. Menosky welcomed all in attendance, including families with toddlers who seemed fascinated by the 60 tomato plants atop one of the tables in the room.
The UC Master Gardener Program is a part of UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. During her presentation, Menosky taught participants how to choose varieties that fit their taste and growing environment, how to cultivate a thriving environment, and how to control pests and diseases using integrated pest management practices.
“We have 16,000 residents at UCI and sustainability is one of our values. One of the ways we engage students is through on-campus gardens,” said Rachel Harvey, sustainability program manager for UCI Student Housing and a UC Master Gardener volunteer in Orange County.
UC Irvine has one teaching garden reserved for undergraduate learning, and three gardens operated and maintained by graduate students. “I was on the waiting list for a garden plot for a while, but it was totally worth the wait,” said Johanna Rinaman, a fifth-year Ph.D. student studying physical chemistry.
While the highlight of the event for many people was the opportunity to take a tomato plant home, another important takeaway was how gardening can be a good activity for your mental health. Sarah Nghiem, family medicine specialist at ETN Medical Infusion, who worked closely with Menosky, was instrumental in developing the mental health content for the day, encouraging attendees to attempt gardening with a mental health perspective.
Nghiem and her team received funding from the Orange County Health Care Agency through the Mental Health Services Act to work with transitional aged students (15-24 years-old) on understanding the importance of mental health, which led to the collaboration between UC Irvine, her alma mater, and the UC Master Gardeners of Orange County.
“I didn't do any gardening during the winter, and I felt a lot more anxious and depressed during that time,” Rinaman said. “I know gardening improves mental health because I've immediately felt a difference whenever I spend time with plants.”
Rinaman, whose father taught her a lot of what she knows about gardening, said that having access to a 4 feet by 6 feet plot to grow her own food is one of the many things she loves about UC Irvine.
Like Rinaman, Menosky turns to gardening to decompress, especially during the long days of summer. Teaching others about the physical and mental benefits of gardening gives her an opportunity to share her experience and, hopefully, help others find new ways to manage stress.
“We often have attendees come back years later telling us how our information has helped them and how much more they are enjoying their time in their gardens,” she said.
To conclude her presentation, Menosky instructed participants to line up for their own tomato plant. Attendees took their plants outside to transfer them from a small pot to a grow bag – a type of container that helps root structure development.
Cassie Ekwego, a third-year transfer student studying civil engineering, couldn't hide her excitement after carefully lifting her plant. “I don't think I realized how attentive you need to be when working with plants,” said Ekwego, reflecting on what she learned from Menosky's presentation.
Now that she has her own plant to care for in her own home, Ekwego is eager to put her new knowledge to the test. “I love tomatoes, but this is going to be a huge responsibility for me,” she said.
Randy Musser, UC Master Gardener program coordinator for Orange County, said that while he enjoys talking to avid gardeners, bringing gardening to new people in the community is special to him. “This tomato workshop is particularly exciting for me because it is an opportunity for the UC Master Gardeners to grow our connection to UCI and young people just starting off on their gardening journey,” said Musser.
With a generous contribution from UC Master Gardener volunteer Sheila Peterson, Musser was able to purchase enough supplies to help attendees, like Ekwego, jumpstart their gardening experience.
Students, whose stress levels can skyrocket throughout the school year, value opportunities to be outdoors, try something new and be in community. “The garden is a different type of classroom. It's a place where students can learn and experiment, hopefully in a way that reduces stress,” said Harvey of UCI Student Housing.
Ekwego, who tried gardening for the first time while volunteering at UC Irvine's teaching garden, is just one of the many students inspired by their experiences. “Gardening reminds me that it's OK to get my hands dirty,” Ekwego said.
- Author: Saoimanu Sope
Living with pests, or “unwanted guests” as some put it, can take a physical, mental and economic toll. For people living in multi-family unit housing, like an apartment complex where everyone lives under one roof, a single infestation of insects or rodents can expose all residents.
Using integrated pest management, or IPM, residents and property managers can detect infestations early and control severe ones and protect people. IPM programs can also save money. IPM saved a 75-unit complex in Contra Costa County $11,121 annually. Similarly, in Santa Clara County, a 59-unit complex saved $1,321 on pest control annually after implementing a proactive IPM program.
This summer, regional directors, property managers, residential service coordinators, maintenance managers and groundskeepers of Mercy Housing – a nonprofit organization that provides affordable, low-income housing – gathered in Long Beach to learn about in-home IPM. The session was led by Siavash Taravati, University of California Cooperative Extension area IPM advisor for Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, and
Josh Shoemaker, an entomologist and private consultant.
Taravati and Shoemaker collaborated with StopPests in Housing, a national program out of Cornell University's Northeastern IPM Center, which seeks to improve pest control in affordable housing and teach management practices for cockroaches, bed bugs and rodents within and around the home.
During their presentation, Taravati introduced participants to the IPM principles and emphasized the importance of monitoring pests.
“IPM is all about making informed decisions which requires knowing the latest status of an infestation,” explained Taravati. “That's where monitoring comes into play. It can help us to identify the exact species we are dealing with as well as telling us if an infestation is growing or shrinking.”
“Monitoring is foundational,” agreed Shoemaker. “If a program does not include monitoring, it's not an IPM program.”
According to Shoemaker, the benefit of partnering with UC IPM is their sharp focus on general IPM, which includes monitoring. “It's real IPM, that prioritizes the well-being of the public,” said Shoemaker, who's eager to continue working with Cooperative Extension and Taravati to ensure that children are growing up in safe environments.
Pest control treatments commonly take place following a serious infestation or several complaints, but IPM promotes constant monitoring to prevent heavy infestations from ever happening. It's a proactive approach rather than a reactive or emergency-response. For many attendees, the training revealed a need to engage with pest management operators more closely.
Training prompts changes that improve safety for residents
Pest management operators commonly use pesticide sprays to control pests. Besides inconveniencing residents, forcing them to do extensive preparations and evacuate their unit until it's safe to return, sprays increase exposure risk to pesticides since the aerosols can linger and land on surfaces.
Instead, Taravati and Shoemaker recommend using gel baits, which are much safer to apply and can target a specific area of a home, including crevices, instead of along all the walls.
“Now that I'm more informed, I'll be speaking to my contractor to discuss how we can switch their approach from a bug spray to a gel,” said Leonardo Pinuelas, a maintenance manager for Mercy Housing.
Pinuelas is not the only one wanting to modify their program, however. According to feedback from staff members at the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles who experienced the same training earlier this year, they prompted their team to amend their pest extermination to include dusting, or applying insecticidal dusts, against roaches, and to review and update their existing IPM plan and practices where appropriate.
Cindy Wise, area director of operations for Mercy Housing, said that in her 35 years, this was one of the few trainings that engaged her staff so actively. “I couldn't help but text my regional vice president to say that our managers were actively participating and asking questions. That doesn't happen often, not even in our own meetings,” said Wise.
Many of the attendees, with their new understanding of how cockroaches move through a structure, shared that they are eager to return to work to meet with residents and support them.
“If you've got roaches in one unit, you've got them in the entire building,” Wise said.
Shoemaker recalls the words of Judy Black, senior technical entomologist for Orkin, and Dini Miller, entomologist at Virginia Tech, who urge the importance of inspections and documentation as IPM best practices.
Although reporting pests in the home can make one feel embarrassed, Wise said she is more interested in making residents feel empowered to not only report signs of infestation to the staff, but to their neighbors.
Training residents is certainly beneficial, but as experts such as Black and Miller have pointed out, housing managers must do their part, instead of scapegoating tenants for their cleaning habits.
StopPests provides free IPM training and technical assistance to Housing and Urban Development assisted properties. If you are interested in the training provided by Taravati and Shoemaker, in collaboration with StopPests, visit StopPests.org for more information.
- Author: Mike Hsu
During summer swarming season, homeowners urged to check for signs of Formosan subterranean termite
In the lottery of troublesome termite infestations, “Roger,” a Rancho Santa Fe homeowner, hit the jackpot (a pseudonym is used to protect his privacy). In 2021, his house in San Diego County was identified as home to only the fourth documented colony of the Formosan subterranean termite (Coptotermes formosanus) in California.
“FST is one of the most destructive urban pests in the world,” said University of California, Riverside entomologist Chow-Yang Lee, affiliated with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources through the campus' Agricultural Experiment Station. “It's also the only termite species listed in the ‘100 of the World's Worst Invasive Alien Species.'”
Endemic to East Asia, this termite is now established in many tropical and subtropical regions, including across the American South. Annually, its infestation costs more than $4 billion in control measures and damage repairs of structures in the U.S.
FST was first discovered in California in La Mesa (San Diego County) in 1992, and it was rediscovered in that city in 2018. Another infestation was reported in Canyon Lake (Riverside County) in 2020. And then, the following year, Roger received his surprise.
“Imagine being in your kitchen looking at your drywall and it's totally normal and then the next day there's a four-inch hole there and you're like ‘What the heck is that? Who put their elbow into the drywall?'” he recalled.
FST colonies can reach millions of individuals
Roger hired a pest control company, Green Flash Pest Control, which sprayed a powerful liquid termiticide in the soil around the house. But the termites – workers, soldiers and winged “alates” – continued to appear. The company tried a second application of soil treatment. But, again, the termites kept popping up.
“We were deeply concerned about the potential damage these termites could cause to the home since these invasive termites are extremely destructive,” said Eric Veronick, director of operations at Green Flash. “Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of information available on the behavior and management of this termite in California.”
The company called upon Siavash Taravati, a UC Cooperative Extension urban Integrated Pest Management (IPM) advisor based in Riverside.
“Some colonies are aerial, meaning that they are formed above the ground with limited or no connection to the soil – in such cases, soil treatment using contact insecticides may not be very effective in managing these termites,” Taravati said. “Furthermore, contact insecticides usually kill a much smaller portion of the colony when compared to termite baits.”
To make matters worse, once FST is established in an area, there have been no records of successful eradication anywhere in the world, according to Taravati. He added that a major reason why the Formosan subterranean termite is so destructive is the enormous size of their colonies.
“Their colonies can reach millions of individuals, versus most native subterranean species that reach a few hundred thousand individual termites per colony,” Taravati explained.
This termite, through its sheer numbers, can turn the wood in a structure into a “spongy kind of cake,” in Taravati's words. More than 10 pounds of wood in a house can be eaten by a mature colony each month. The financial hit for a homeowner can be substantial, up to tens of thousands of dollars – not to mention the increased risks to safety.
“Anything from studs to rafters to door frames and window frames – everything is going to be compromised, if the termites are left unchecked. And then, as soon as we have a major stress on the building, let's say there's a big storm or an earthquake – there's a high risk of at least part of the building collapsing,” said Taravati, who also noted that, unlike California native subterranean termite species, FST can attack and kill live trees and plants.
“These termites can be a nightmare,” he said.
Summer is ‘swarming season' for FST
Since the Rancho Santa Fe case in 2021, four more colonies have been documented, in La Mesa again and also in Highland Park, Hollywood Hills and La Verne (the latter three in Los Angeles County). Taravati said it's possible that FST has been spreading via structural lumber or potted plants and soil.
And even if a colony appears to be eliminated at a certain locale, Taravati noted, there is always the chance that part of the colony survives or more colonies of termites already have been established in nearby locations, as a result of swarming termites from the originally infested property.
Although nominally “subterranean,” certain members of an FST colony grow wings and fly to nearby locations to establish new colonies. These winged alates are also called swarmers because of their behavior during the “swarming” season, when termites mate and reproduce.
For the Formosan subterranean termite, that swarming season in California is late May through early August, so now is the time for homeowners and building managers in southern and central California to keep an eye out for those winged termites.
“If you experience a termite swarm in your house, contact a pest management professional and keep some termite samples in a Ziploc bag in the event you need to send the samples to UC Riverside for morphological and DNA-based identifications,” said Lee, who added that it's a good idea to periodically check your structure for signs of infestation, such as wood damage or shelter tubes (mud tubes).
Lee said FST swarmers have a lighter colored body compared to the dark color of native subterranean termites and the orange-brown body of drywood termite swarmers (see this flyer for additional identification information).
Following an especially wet winter, there's a chance California could see more FST infestations, as this termite generally requires moist environments to thrive, Lee added. He recommends that concerned community members seek professional advice.
“Do not attempt to control an FST infestation by yourself,” Lee said. “This is not your typical native Californian subterranean termite species; they are highly destructive, and you want to intercept the problem with the right strategy before it's too late.”
Homeowner: ‘I owe them my house'
In Roger's case, Taravati enlisted the help of Lee and his UC colleague, Greg Kund. They made multiple visits to inspect the home and analyze the situation – going “above and beyond,” according to Roger.
At Lee's suggestion, they used a caulk gun to insert a gel-like experimental bait into the wall where the termites were coming out. Once spread and passed on to the other nestmates, the product – which contains a chitin synthesis inhibitor (a type of insect growth regulator) – interrupts the termites' development so they are unable to properly molt and replace the short-lived “workforce” of foragers and soldiers. The colony eventually collapses and is eliminated.
“Generally speaking, IGRs are much more effective, but they require more patience,” Taravati explained. “You're not going to see the results the next day, or two-three days. You're going to see the results in a few weeks – but when you see the results, it's massive.”
And that's exactly what Roger and Green Flash Pest Control saw.
“Soon after their bait application, the termites stopped emerging from the walls and that gave us and the homeowner a big sigh of relief,” Veronick said. “I appreciate their expertise and dedication in helping us get rid of this destructive pest."
Roger said he is immensely grateful to the UC team.
“They were fantastic; I owe them my house,” he said. “They were super gracious and helpful and responsive and – ultimately, the thing I care most about – they were effective; they fixed the problem. Here we are two years later and – knock on wood, or maybe I should knock on something else! – everything is good.”
Lee also credited Taravati for bringing his knowledge and “can-do” attitude to communities across Southern California.
“He is highly knowledgeable and always able to come up with feasible solutions,” Lee said. “We need good Cooperative Extension urban IPM advisors like Siavash who could provide good advice and bring solutions to the stakeholders, be they homeowners or pest management professionals.”
Taravati said community members need to maintain their vigilance and urges them to download and share the FST flyer that includes identification tips and contact information. He said they are always free to e-mail him with their concerns and photos of suspected FST – not only to help stop the spread of the pest but to expand scientific understanding.
“This termite is so new to California – even for us, as researchers. Despite being in La Mesa since the 1990s, it wasn't until 2020 when these termites were detected in other places, including Riverside and Los Angeles counties,” Taravati explained. “All of us need to learn more about this pest and closely monitor the behavior of this pest.”
- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Coyote conflicts with Californians are on the rise, with reports of urban coyotes biting people and killing pets. In July, two people were bitten by a coyote in separate attacks on a trail in Mission Viejo. Recently one elusive coyote has been linked by DNA tests to biting attacks on two children and three adults in the East Bay Area. To better understand coyote behavior, University of California Cooperative Extension advisor Niamh Quinn has been collaring and tracking coyotes in the Los Angeles area.
In urban areas, hazing is often used to frighten coyotes and deter them from approaching people. Although waving arms and shouting at urban coyotes are commonly thought to drive the animals away, no research has been done to determine whether hazing truly changes coyote behavior. Human and wildlife interactions expert Quinn is studying the movement of urban coyotes to find out how effective hazing is.
With funding from the Los Angeles County Quality and Productivity Commission and the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures Project, Quinn bought GPS tracking collars and pays for game cameras to find the coyotes.
“Without the support of the county we wouldn't have a project,” said Quinn, who is based at the UC South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine.
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources and LA County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures share the goal of learning how to more effectively manage coyotes. Because so little information is available, this project is expected to help both county and municipal managers who have found themselves involved more frequently in the management of wildlife over the last decade.
A documentary by Benjamin Fargen describes Quinn's research. In “Coyote Conflict in Los Angeles - The UCANR Hazing Study,” Fernando Barrera of Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures says about 60 pets were taken from people's homes in a three-month period near a park in the county. LA County Agricultural Commissioner/Weights & Measures sets out humane traps that are designed specifically to catch coyotes and for quick release of other species.
“They help set and unset traps, scout for new trapping sites and are there in the middle of the night to help me handle the coyote when we trap them,” Quinn said.
Although they know where coyotes are, catching them to put collars on isn't easy. In the documentary, Quinn describes watching via game camera monitor as coyotes approach traps, but not close enough to get caught.
“We wouldn't be able to do this research without a team,” Quinn said. “For scientific research, we need different ideas to come from people with different expertise. It can be a frustrating mix of trying to get all the team together, our veterinarian Curtis Eng of Western University of Health Sciences has to be available, the trappers have to be available and I have to be available.”
Quinn monitors her phone for alerts constantly. “I'm listening for the buzz of my phone to tell me there's something there.”
To date, Quinn's team has collared 19 coyotes. One coyote she has dubbed “Lazy Legs” has a range of about a half-mile, partly in natural habitat, but often in neighborhoods. In contrast, a female collared coyote has ranged 7 to 10 miles.
“You can see that she hangs out in the natural areas, but also dips in and out of the neighborhoods,” Quinn said. “She's probably choosing to go into the neighborhoods to find maybe some trash, maybe cats, or maybe even some rats because we know they eat rats. We know they eat a lot of cats and they eat a lot of bunnies.”
After a coyote killed her cat in 2011, Debora Martin launched Coyotes of Orange County to educate pet owners how to keep their pets safe from coyotes. She praises Quinn's Coyote Cacher website https://ucanr.edu/coyotecacher for the map showing where community members have reported coyotes have been sighted. “Based on that information, things can be done,” she said.
Torrance Police Department has also partnered with Quinn to learn about wildlife management and to educate the public about coyotes. Residents may unintentionally attract coyotes by leaving pets and pet food outside or fruit that falls from trees in their yards.
“Coyote Conflict in Los Angeles - The UCANR Hazing Study” can be viewed for free on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEnqU24RgAU&feature=youtu.be. To learn more about the coyote hazing research, visit https://www.ucscurri.com/hazing and follow Cosmopolitan Coyotes on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/cosmopolitancoyotes.
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources brings the power of UC to all 58 California counties. The coyote conflict project and other UC ANR programs rely on donor contributions. To learn more about how to support human and wildlife interactions research, visit https://donate.ucanr.edu/?fund_id=1145.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
An international team of researchers has established a connection between ancient Indian rock art painted in a Kern County cave and a common California plant that was used by Native Americans in their sacred rituals.
This is the first time a hallucinogen has been tied to rock art, the researchers said in their article published in the November 2020 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
UC Cooperative Extension advisor David Haviland, a Kern County entomology expert, was able to work with the researchers to confirm the notion that one of the images painted on the Pinwheel Cave in Wild Wolves Preserve is likely a sphinx moth, an insect that pollinates Datura. Datura is a genus of plants native to North America that include the common agricultural pest jimson weed (Datura stramonium) and sacred thornapple (Datura wrightii).
“I've experienced hundreds of sphinx moths pollinating Datura,” Haviland said. “The sun starts to go down, the large white flowers open up and attract the moths. Scientists have reported that, after drinking the nectar with their long proboscises, they fly a little erratically, suggesting that, even to the moths, the nectar has a small narcotic effect.”
An image in the cave appears to show a human figure with a sphinx moth head. In another part of the cave, Native Americans painted a bright red pinwheel shape, which the scientists believe depicts a Datura flower as it swirls open. The most telling evidence that connects the Datura to the cave art is dozens of masticated wads of Datura plant fiber that were found pressed into crevices inside the cave.
“This indicates that Datura was ingested in the cave and that the rock painting represents the plant itself, serving to codify communal rituals involving this powerful entheogen,” wrote the researchers in their PNAS article.
Datura is known to have been used by Native American youth when initiated into adulthood, where the root was processed into a tea known historically as toloache. Datura could also be taken throughout their lives to invoke supernatural power for doctoring, counteract negative supernatural events, ward off ghosts or see the future.
Today, Native Americans' descendants recognize the plant's toxicity and no longer ingest Datura, while still respecting their ancestors' knowledge in using a substance that was dangerous and could result in death if the dosage were miscalculated.
“The authors of the article agree: the plant can be highly toxic and should never be consumed,” said David Robinson, United Kingdom archaeologist and the research leader.
Robinson and his team noticed the clumps of fiber, or quids, tucked into crevices on the wall when they were researching Pinwheel Cave in 2007. Quids are commonly found where Native Americans have chewed vegetation to extract nutrition. The scientists analyzed the quids for ancient DNA evidence, but found none. They did discover the wads of vegetation were not comprised of a typical Native dietary staples.
The scientists used three-dimensional digital microscopy on 15 clumps found in the cave, and identified evidence that the Native Americans' chewed and bit the quids with their teeth to extract atropine and scopolamine – two hallucinogenic alkaloids found in Datura. Almost all the samples are Datura wrightii. One exception was a quid of Yucca.
Fifty-six clearly identifiable quids were found in the Pinwheel Cave crevices, but traces of fibrous materials in crevices indicate there were many more in the past that are now gone. Based on radiocarbon dating, the oldest quid studied contained 400-year-old plant material; the newest one was from 130 years ago.
With the scientific analysis of the quids, the researchers were able to interpret the ancient rock art images.
“Rather than the art depicting what is seen in a trance, the pinwheel is likely a representation of the plant causing the trance,” the article says. “The rock art thus established the space where individuals underwent a deeply meaningful first-hand entheogenic experience within the context of an important communal site.”
