- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
First of all, I cannot tell you how important it is for you NOT to put out traps. There is a lot of information online about these traps but when people start putting them out, it completely messes up the detection program that the state is conducting.
Having said that, if you see any of the following things on or near a Canary Island Date Palm please contact the following:
CDFA Pest Hotline at 1-800-491-1899 or go to the
CDFA's Report A Pest website at: www.cdfa.ca.gov/go/reportapest
Also , the adult is a rather clumsy, slow moving flier. If you think you see something like a large bumblebee around a Canary Island palm, it may actually be a RPW. If would probably be helpful to report that also.
Hold your cursor over the photo for a description (if the photo is not self-evident).
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
I just got an email from Michael J. who suggested that the weed I could not ID (see July 15 2009 post) is an Echium. I looked it up and it looks like Echium vulgare L. (common viper's bugloss). I just moved it to a greenhouse last week so I'll take another look at it tomorrow.
According to the USDA Plants Profile site (http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ECVU), there are no specimens reported in California. I'll take it to ag commissioners office so they can send it to CDFA for an "official" ID.
Thanks Michael! I'll post the outcome when I find out for sure.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
As a followup to my last posting here, I started one liverwort trial looking at postemergence materials. So far some of them look pretty darn good although I don't have any crops in the test it may turn out that they also kill them as well as the liverwort.
I also started a preemergence study today (from a a grant from the California Association of Nurseries andGarden Centers). One of the treatments is mustard seed meal (MSM). Since I am doing this collaboratively with a couple of advisors in the north and they already started, I used the same rates they used. I think that if the MSM doesn't have any herbicidal properties, it should at least control the liverwort just by sheer mass.
Here's a photo with the MSM on left and the untreated pots on right:
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
Finally got going on setting up some trials to look at controlling liverwort in greenhouses.
Got funding from IR4 and California Asso. of Nurseries and Garden Centers and am working on part of it with Steve Tjosvold and Richard Smith, advisors in the Santa Cruz/Monterey Co. area.
We have lots of lower toxicity products that look like they may do the trick! When I did some preliminary work at a commercial greenhouse I thought for sure I was going to burn the crop to the nubs but most of the time the plants looked pretty darn good and had surprising good liverwort control.
- Author: Cheryl A. Wilen
Consumers should not assume that just because a pesticide is sold at some discount store that it is actually safe and legal to use. By the way, I still see the infamous pesticide chalk sold at swap meets/open air markets.
http://retail.ocregister.com/2010/09/15/99-cents-only-stores-fined-for-selling-illegal-products/34868/