- Author: Tunyalee Martin
New Pest Alert for Bagrada bug, a pest of cole crops
—Tunyalee Martin, UC Statewide IPM Program
UC IPM’s new Pest Alert helps you identify Bagrada bug, an invasive stink bug spreading through western Arizona and southern California causing severe crop, nursery, and landscape losses. In agriculture, Bagrada bug is a pest of cole crops and other mustard family plants. In home gardens it feeds on these same vegetables and on ornamental plants such as sweet alyssum and candytuft.
Bagrada bugs use their needlelike mouthparts to pierce and feed on plants and their seeds. Damage includes leaf spotting, wilting, stunting, multiple branches or crowns, and death of the whole plant.
The Pest Alert was produced by UCCE advisors Eric Natwick and Surendra Dara, John Palumbo from the University of Arizona, and the UC IPM team.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
I'm not sure when I first saw or used a garden tool called a hori-hori but ever since I started using it when I do weed identification walks, people ask me about it. I once organized a meeting where part of the registration fee included one of these tools and now, even 5 years or so later, people are stilling swooning over that meeting because of the tool.
So... here it is:
The hori hori is a blade, usually made of stainless steel about 7 inches long with a sturdy wooden handle. The blade is slightly concave so it can be used as a trowel. One side is serrated and it is very useful for cutting out sod or digging in soil. I use it a lot for excavating plants to show the root structure or how deep turf roots go. It is also thin enough to dig around irrigation pipe to fix broken pipe in tight places.
They run anywhere from $20-30.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
Just got the comments back from an annual landscape IPM meeting I coordinate with support from the Port of San Diego. Because the training is centered on reducing pesticides in runoff, many of the topics we covered were not "how to control x, y, or z" but how to manage landscapes through improving plant health and how to reduce irrigation runoff thereby reducing movement of pesticides into waterways.
It seems that some attendees were not real happy with approach. Not enough information about pests (although many people followed similar comments with wanting more information about using native plants in landscapes), too much information about managing irrigation. One person even said he/she will not attend if we don't get at least 5 hours of continuing education units from DPR.
As you might imagine, this is somewhat frustrating to me. People can get loads of information about pest control straight up (see PAPA, CAPCA meetings). What they often have a hard time getting is information about the other parts of IPM, the parts that make it an INTEGRATED system. The basis of IPM is prevention and appropriate plant culture is key. Also preventing the offsite movements of pesticides is a high priority for California and most of the country.
So please understand, if you just want to know what spray on a given pest or are only interested on getting your CEUs, this might not be the meeting for you. But if you want to raise the bar on how an integrated pest management system can work in landscapes, please join us next year.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
I was recently shown this youtube video of Dr. Mark Hoddle of UCR on a collecting trip for red palm weevil. Like a train wreck - you know what is going to happen but you still watch.
Enjoy!
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has a free mobile app for iPhones and iPads. As is the trend these days, an Android version will be available at a later time.
The app, “Report a Pest”, streamlines the reporting to CDFA by having people take photos of a suspected invasive pest and the photos are sent CDFA for evaluation.
For those of you who are not in the Apple family, you can also go to http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/ on the CDFA’s website and click on the "Report a Pest" button on the right hand side (direct link is http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/ReportaPest/).
Lots of other really great information about invasive plants and animals, including insects) is also on the site.