- Author: Rachael Freeman Long
UC Cooperative Extension advisors are on the front line and get the most interesting questions from our community. Someone brought some wasps into our office, and was worried they were invading her home, and wondered how to get rid of them. They were identified by the UC Davis Entomology Museum as black and yellow solitary mud dauber wasps, which are natural predators of spiders, and hence beneficial! Before you reach for that can of insecticide or heaven forbid, a blow torch to control spiders, talk to a UCCE advisor or Master Gardener in your county and read this blog for more information on managing them.
Here's all you need to know about mud daubers...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Pests have always been a bane of human existence. Modern society has developed effective pest management, “but there is no kind and gentle way to kill things,” said Brian Leahy, the director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, in remarks at the April 2018 IPM Summit.
The ever increasing incidence of invasive pests and the concerns about how to manage them will be a continuing challenge. Leahy said society is on a pest treadmill; and the best way to address it is with integrated pest management (IPM).
The concept of integrated pest management emerged 60 years ago when scientists recognized that imposing a harsh chemical on a natural system threw it off kilter, often causing...
- Author: Cheryl Reynolds
School is already back in session for many children in districts throughout California, and several others will be starting back to school in the next couple of weeks.
While students and teachers were enjoying summer break, an amendment to the Healthy Schools Act (HSA) went into effect on July 1. It requires teachers, custodians, administrators, other staff or volunteers, and licensed pest management professionals applying any pesticide (this includes disinfectants and antimicrobials) at a school site to take an annual training course covering school integrated pest management (IPM). The training course must be approved by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR).
An online course,
- Author: Tyler Ash
Download the free booklet at the bottom of the page!
1. Ants
Most people deal with ants around their home at some point. Because most ants live outdoors, focus efforts on keeping ants from entering buildings by caulking entryways. Follow good sanitation practices to make your home less attractive to ants. Spraying ants inside the home will not prevent more ants from entering. Use baits to control the ant colony. Pesticide baits work by attracting worker ants who then take the poison back to the nest where the entire...
/h3>/h2>- Author: Vonny M. Barlow
Myanmar (formerly Burma) is located in Southeast Asia, bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. I was asked by the United States Agency for International Development (U.S. AID) to travel to Myanmar to use my training and experience as an academic advisor affiliated with the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program and UC Cooperative Extension in Riverside County to share information about basic IPM and pesticide safety.
Myanmar is 261,227 square miles in size, a little smaller than the state of Nevada. About 15 percent of the land is under cultivation. Agriculture makes up 60 to 80 percent of Myanmar's gross domestic product, with the vast majority...