Pest Management & Plant Health

What do pest control and public health campaigns against SARS Cov-2 have in common? Both activities use pesticides. In the eyes of the law, sanitizer and disinfectant products are considered pesticides.

Many parks, recreational areas, and outdoor venues in California are home to yellowjacket wasps (Vespula spp.). Yellowjackets are commonly attracted to human food items, creating a serious nuisance and a potential stinging threat.

Out-of-place and troublesome species, such as feral hogs, wild horses and burros, may actually be restoring the ecological services of extinct animals, says UC Davis evolutionary biologist Scott Carroll, co-author of a newly published article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (P...

If you missed any of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's fall and winter seminars, 2019-2020, here are the links to the videos. Community ecologist Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, coordinated the seminars.

This spring if you are looking for options to obtain your continuing education units (CEUs) and not sure where to get them, why not check out the online options that the UC Statewide IPM Program (UC IPM) has to offer.

"Eat your greens," they say. Okay, we don't need any encouragement, but apparently many other folks need a push, a poke or a prod to eat cole crops, including cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, mustard, kale and kohlrabi. Well, cabbage aphids need no encouragement.

HONOLULU Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it has prevented several shipments of an illegal health product from entering U.S. Pacific ports under federal pesticide laws. The item, Virus Shut Out, is not registered with the EPA.

Chill weather slows down grass growth in our lawns and we can notice the bright yellow flowers of Taraxacum officinale, the common dandelion. In our mild climate, dandelions bloom nearly year-round. Even as they bloom, these weeds seldom rise above their basal rosette at the lawn surface.

Western drywood termites (Incisitermes minor, Figure 1) are an important pest of structural wood in California, causing millions of dollars in damage annually. These termites are very cryptic, hidden in their galleries within wood members (pieces of wood), and only emerge during swarming.

While you're sheltering in place due to the coronavirus pandemic precautions, not too many people are aware of a new faculty member in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, recently arrived from Harvard.