Ongoing research

So you're sitting there watching the Gulf Fritillary caterpillars chowing down on the passionflower vines. It's sort of like watching the grass grow, or the paint dry, but there's much more drama.

For three days in late July 2013 Kevin Koy, Executive Director of the GIF and I spent time at Google with 50+ other academics and staff to learn about Google Earth's mapping and outreach tools that leverage cloud computing.

Kathy Kellison is on a mission: to encourage winegrape growers to plant Bee-Helpful Cover Crops. This would include mustards, clover and buckwheat, plants that honey bees love. Kellison, the executive director of the Santa Rosa-based Partners for Sustainable Pollination, will speak Thursday, Aug.

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The purple trailing lantana (Lantana montevidensis) is a butterfly magnet. In our yard, it draws gulf fritillaries, Western tiger swallowtails, cabbage whites, and fiery skippers. Lately, fiery skippers (Hylephila phyleus) are the main draw.

A link to the July 29 press release from the Weed Science Society of America on several invasive weeds in the primrose (Ludwigia) family. The article features information from Dr. Brenda Grewell, USDA-ARS Ecologist who is located at UC Davis (just down the hall from yours truly).

Bagrada bug nymph on a dried mustard plant. Photo by Surendra Dara Compared to the number of queries I received last year, it has been fairly quiet about the Bagrada bug infestations.

Robbin Thorp saw it first. Talk about an eagle eye. Thorp, a native pollinator specialist and emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, was monitoring the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, on July 23 when something caught his eye.

It's a glorious summer day and butterflies are fluttering in the breeze. They are Nature's flying flowers, Nature's stained glass windows, and Nature's sunny smiles.

Today is the fourth in a series of posts outlining current University of California weed science research published in the California Weed Science Society (CWSS) Research Update and News (June 2013, Volume 9, #2).