News & Information Outreach

The new year is just around the corner, and along with it will come new Urban and Community IPM Webinars! Join us every third Thursday of each month from 12:00 to 1:00pm PST to learn about a wide range of urban pest management topics. This series is free and open to the public but advance registration is…

It’s cold outside! But that doesn’t have to stop you from gardening. Why not cheer up the dark days of winter by planting some herbs on a sunny windowsill indoors, and using them in your cold weather soups and stews?

 Science matters. Science beckons. Science fulfills.The California All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (CalATBI) is organizing a 2026 Student Insect Collection BioBlitz, a statewide community science effort to document our state's biodiversity.Organizers related:The goal: "To document California’s insect…

 Some folks wear their heart on their sleeves.Others wear a dragonfly on their chest.Newly arrived in the Bohart Museum of Entomology gift shop are dragonfly T-shirts."The dragonflies came in!" announced Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum. "They look great." …

Great opportunity to see more than 20 different cover crops in the field and learn about how to use cover crops to improve your soil health, improve yields, and improve water quality.  Please register by following the QR code in the attached flyer. Lunch ProvidedThursday December 11th, 20259am - 12 pm…

  Leaving the leaves has become the hot, fall garden topic. An appropriate topic for this time of year as leaves are falling steadily. The U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the National Wildlife Federation are all huge advocates for leaving the leaves. State and local fire…

 It's "Friday Fly Day" but we haven't seen a drone fly (Eristalis tenax) for at least a month.It's a member of the hover fly family, Syrphidae, but it manages to appear almost everywhere as...a... bee. A drone is a drone is a drone. A bee is a bee is a bee. (Thank you, Gertrude Stein, who penned "A…

The SJC and Delta Field Crops Meeting agenda is announced.

By David Shubin, ISA Certified Arborist and UC Master Gardener of Napa County.Fall in Napa Valley brings that familiar mix of cool air and golden light and, for many of us, the instinct to start cleaning up.  Out come the rakes, clippers and green bins. It feels good to set things right. But before you…

 Bees, wasps, flies, oh, my!Many non-insect enthusiasts often misidentify insects. A honey bee become a fly, a wasp becomes a bee, and a fly becomes a wasp or bee.So organizers of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's recent open house on  "Bees and Their Mimics" helped set the record straight…

Blog article by Michelle SchlegelLast Saturday, I was walking through a large greenhouse filled with unusual and rare plants. These greenhouse plants were protected from direct sun, extreme temperatures, and the environment was quite humid. Despite the lack of direct sunlight, the cacti and succulents were…

 Congrats to Rithica! It's so great to see young scientists excel!Rithika Senthilkumar, an undergraduate research scholar in the UC Davis Vector Genetics Laboratory (VGL), School of Veterinary Medicine, has been awarded a highly competitive 2025 Promega D.O.O.R.S. (Development of Our Research…

 Today (Tuesday) is Giving Day.Let's give to the honey bees. Or, rather, let's "give BACK" to the bees. Honey bees pollinate about one-third of our food supply, including fruits, vegetables and nuts. They also provide us with honey, beeswax and other products.To us, giving to the bees means giving…

The invasive pest spotlight focuses on emerging or potential invasive pests in California. In this issue we are covering nutria. Nutria Facts The nutria is a large semi-aquatic rodent introduced to California in the early 1900s to be farmed for their fur. When the fur market collapsed, many nutria…

How about bringing a new plant home to cheer up these dark winter days?  For the avid gardener, houseplants can be an excellent source of greenery and even flowers when the outside garden has gone gray and dormant in the doldrums of mid-winter.  The Moth Orchid, ZZ Plant, Christmas Cactus, Snake Plant,…

 They are a special group of people--the people who receive the California State Beekeepers' Association's Eric Mussen Distinguished Service Award, launched in 2015.Eric Mussen (1944-2022), who served for 38 years as the UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist and member of the UC Davis Department of…