Archive Nut, Prune and Olive Programs

I visited a couple herbicide trial sites in orchards and vineyards yesterday and saw some interesting results that follow up on my post from February 21, 2011.

Some call them "soldier beetles." Some call them "leather-winged beetles." Some call them "Cantharids" (family Cantharidae). Whatever you call them, be sure to welcome them to your garden. They eat aphids, lots of aphids. Like the good soldiers they are, they're ready to do battle.

That old saying, "Be all you can be," should be changed to "Bee all you can bee.

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From moths to medicine... When distinguished professor Bruce Hammock of the UC Davis Department of Entomology speaks at the department's noonhour seminar tomorrow (Wednesday, April 6) in 122 Briggs Hall, his topic is sure to draw attention.

Beekeepers with more than 50 colonies and who do business in California will soon have the opportunity to help support honey bee research.

Cover crops, or vegetation that was grown after the cash crop was harvested, was a practice that was widely used in the 1940s and 1950s. The vegetation was used to maintain or increase the fertility of the soil before commercial fertilizers became widely available.

In a Great Basin sagebrush community, low rates of glyphosate applied at the medusahead tillering stage in late April to early May provided excellent control of medusahead.

Very rare. Very rare, indeed. It has the eyes of a drone and the body of a worker bee. And no, this is not science fiction. It's a mutant honey bee. "They're not totally uncommon," said Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "But they're there.

I only have a moment to post today but wanted to put up two links concerning the research and publications of a retired Purdue University researcher. Dr.