Test PB Collection: FTE

I spoke last week at the Central San Joaquin Valley Summer Almond Meeting (in Merced, CA) as part of a program that encompassed the almond industry, insect pests, disease managemment and weed control among other topics.

A streak of gray, but don't wash it away. The gray hairstreak is a butterfly. We spotted this delicate-looking butterfly (Strymon melinus) on a red pincushion flower (Scabiosa) this week in Winters, Yolo County. Gray on red. Fauna on flora. A Strymon on a Scabiosa.

It's been dubbed "The Manhattan Project of Entomology." And it may have "the potential to revolutionize the way we think about insects," says Richard Levine, communications program manager of the Entomological Society of America (ESA). Call it "The Manhattan Project of Entomology.

Here's the beginning of the 2011 rice season in three graphs*: Degree day (DD) accumulation over the developmental threshold of 55 oF (starting May 1st) during early May in 2011 was similar to 2008 and 2009.

The feather-legged fly looks as if it were formed by a committee. It's about the size of a house fly, but there the similarity ends. Black head and thorax, hind legs fringed with a "comb" of short black hairs, and an abdomen that's the color of honey--bright orange honey.

To attract honey bees to your garden, it's a good idea to let the artichokes flower. Sure, you could pick them for your dinner, but you'd be depriving honey bees of theirs. At the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at UC Davis, the artichokes are beginning to flower.

Honey bees in the pink? Yes. If you plant rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora), a perennial succulent, be prepared for a posse of honey bees.

Article reposted from the Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) website. The pdf version of the article is attached at the bottom of the post. Take care, Brad http://www.wssa.net/index.htm http://www.wssa.net/WSSA/PressRoom/WSSA_Compost_WeedFree.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology has five. Nature has none. Zip. Zero. Zilch. The Xerces Blue Butterfly, which once thrived on the San Francisco Peninsula before urbanization chased it away, is extinct. There are no more.

Deep in the heart of the Amazon forest, the dengue mosquito, Aedes aegpti, is on the prowl. So are researchers from the Thomas Scott lab at UC Davis.