Landscape trees provide welcome shade, fruit, homes for wildlife, and even a place for kids to climb. But if the wood is damaged, disease-causing fungi can infect the tree. A number of fungal diseases decay wood in both tree branches and trunks, weakening and sometimes killing the tree. Wood decay can be hazardous when infected branches and trunks fall.

Palm trees are commonly seen in California, making some think about the tree-lined streets of Hollywood, or sitting by the pool somewhere. These tropical or subtropical trees are beautiful and varied, with many different types of palms, each adapted for different growing conditions and each with specific disease-causing pathogens that can attack it.

Palm trees, like other plants, are susceptible to pathogens that can weaken or even kill the tree. Diseases such as diamond scale, pink rot, Fusarium wilt, and others can reduce the leaf canopy, discolor leaves and trunk, and cause distortion, stunting or death.

If you have palm trees or care for palms as part of your work, it's important to identify and know about these...

Here are the answers to the traps pictured in yesterday's blog post. How did you do? Let us know in the comments section.

As long as you use integrated pest management when seeking to fend off your pest enemies, you can be assured that Admiral Akbar would be proud.

Answers:

1. Yellow sticky trap, used for monitoring and detecting small winged insects like Asian citrus psyllid and whiteflies.

2. Live catch trap....

In honor of May the 4^th, the Star Wars fans here at the UC IPM Program thought we'd have some fun with that well-loved line from Episode VI.

Instead of strategies to conduct intergalactic battles, the traps we like to talk about are the ones for monitoring and catching pests around the home, garden, and landscape.

Test your knowledge of traps by seeing if you can name the traps below and what they are used for. Answers will be posted tomorrow!