Spring is a good time to begin monitoring for any lawn insect pests. Pest examples include various root, crown and leaf-feeding caterpillars, grubs like masked chafers, billbugs and chinch bugs.
Although insects can be serious pests of lawns, lawn damage is more frequently due to lack of proper cultural care and/or improper grass species selection for your area. An unhealthy lawn is more easily attacked by insects, weeds and diseases.
Insects are sometimes are blamed for lawn damage when the culprit may actually be disease-causing pathogens, dog urine, or abiotic causes such as leaving an item on the lawn for some time and inappropriate use of garden chemicals such as fertilizers and herbicides.
It's important to...
Did you make a resolution to be healthier in 2016? If so, why not add keeping your landscape healthy to your resolution? UC IPM has a new resource that can help.
The Seasonal Landscape IPM Checklist or SLIC is a regional decision-making tool that can help you keep your landscape healthy by preventing pests and plant problems. It was designed to help landscape professionals and home gardeners know which activities to do to prevent, monitor, or manage pests each month. Monthly lists can be viewed online or printed as a PDF and you can carry it with you to ‘check off' activities as you work outside.
The newest feature of the tool...
Thanksgiving is a time to gather together with family and friends. The occasion is usually centered around a big meal followed by pumpkin pie, and hopefully some time to let each person share a list of what they are most grateful for that year.
Here at UC IPM, we are adding beneficial insects to our “thankful” list! These helpful invertebrates (also called natural enemies) are often overlooked for the contribution they make to gardens and landscapes.
Natural enemies, such as spiders and certain mites and insects, can help reduce the number of pests in your garden. It's possible that part of the reason they are overlooked is because...
- Author: Andrew Mason Sutherland
[From the July 2015 issue of the UC IPM Retail IPM Newsletter]
Insect pests, though actually quite rare in well-managed lawns and turf, can sometimes jeopardize a flawless appearance, potentially sending people running to their local nursery or garden center for help.
The recently revised UC IPM Pest Note: Lawn Insects can prepare you with answers to keep lawns pest-free and BBQ ready this summer. This resource contains a wealth of information about lawn insect...
/span>- Author: Andrew Mason Sutherland
[From the May 2015 issue of the UC IPM Green Bulletin]
For landscape professionals: Turf areas, such as residential lawns, commercial landscape features, municipal rights-of-way, sports fields, and golf courses, can be challenging to manage since they often require substantial inputs and may be expected to always look clean, green, and uniform by clients. Insect pests, though actually quite rare in well-managed turf, can sometimes jeopardize a flawless appearance (Figure 1), leading to further inputs in the form of pesticide applications. With proper monitoring, however, pest...