Agriculture

The old saying, Everything's fine until it's not, comes to mind when dealing with some tough to control perennial weeds in alfalfa production during the summertime.

Celebrate National Honey Bee Day by brushing up on your knowledge of bee protectioncheck out the newly revised Best Management Practices to Protect Bees from Pesticides and Bee Precaution Pesticide Ratings from UC IPM.

Go as far as you can [young scientists]. The world needs you badly.E.O Wilson.

The Insect and Mite sections of the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines for Dry Beans have been recently revised and updated and are now available online at: UC IPM Dry Beans Pest Management Guidelines. Authors include UCCE Farm Advisor Rachael Long and UC IPM Advisor Pete Goodell (emeritus).

There are two (2) new posts on the UC Rice Blog written by Whitney Brim-DeForest, Cooperative Extension Rice Advisor.

A USDA grant will allow a group of California organic farmers to team up with researchers from the University of California, Chico State and Fresno State to determine whether tilling less soil on the farm will improve production of vegetable crops.

It's that time again! If you would like to submit seeds for herbicide resistance testing, many weed species will be maturing right about now.

This is a follow up article to a blog that my colleague, Guy Kyser wrote back in 2011 titled Purple alert: Common Pokeweed. Since that time, I probably get a dozen or so calls this time of year asking, what is that huge weed growing in my yard with dark black berries and big green leaves.

We look forward to "The Boys' Night Out." Ah, pillow fights, popcorn, and marathon movies on TV, you ask? No. "Boys' Night Out" is when the longhorned male bees in our pollinator garden in Vacaville engage in sleepovers on our Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia) and other blossoms.

Next time you're on Higuera St. in downtown SLO, look up. Cal Poly entomology professor, Dr. David Headrick, is taking biological control to new heights! Here's his story: An invasive whitefly pest is attacking our giant fig trees in downtown SLO.