Ongoing research

Life stages twospotted spider mite and Lewis mite. Notice the similarities between twospotted spider mite female (top right) and Lewis mite (bottom). Photos by Surendra Dara A few species of spider mites infest strawberries grown on the California coast.

UC scientists presented recent additions to the growing body of research on conservation tillage in California at the second annual Twilight Conservation Tillage and Cropping Systems field day Sept.

Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, is on a mission. He and fellow members of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation are trying to save Franklin's bumble bee from extinction.

Organic Herbicides: Do they work?

A good time to photograph the European wool carder bee is in the early morning when it's warming its muscles to prepare for flight. It lies perfectly still. That's what it did in our yard last weekend. It warmed itself on the sunny side of a leaf. Not unlike the sunny side of a street...

Almost two weeks ago the California Rice Experiment Station (RES) had its annual field day. It was a great opportunity to see fist-hand the research going on at the station.

I visited a field a few weeks ago in the Woodland area. Older leaves showed discolored tips and margins, and necrotic spots. Leaf tips eventually turned brown and die. The grower was worried it might have been blast, because of some of the lesions were elliptical and resembled blast lesions.

When beekepers from all over the Western states converge on the Western Apicultural Society (WAS) meeting in Hawaii next week, they won't be there to bask in the sun.

Joe DiTomaso, John JR Roncoroni, and I evaluated a purple starthistle trial in Napa County last month.

Often you'll hear kindergarten students asking one another: "What's your favorite color?" Beekeepers do that, too--in a joking sort of way.