Pest Management & Plant Health

DAVIS--Keynote speaker at the fourth annual UC Davis Bee Symposium: Keeping Bees Healthy, set Saturday, March 3 in the UC Davis Conference Room on Alumni Drive, is noted bee scientist/professor/author Tom Seeley of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., who will speak on "Darwinian Beekeeping.

Do you know where your nematodes are? If you're a grower, you should.

California ground squirrels are common throughout much of California and may be found living near homes, structures, gardens, and landscapes where they can be a real nuisance.

Dandelions are broadleaf plants easily recognizable by their bright yellow flower and puffball of white tufted seeds heads.

It's "bee" time! Make that "time for healthy bees!" Registration is underway for the fourth annual UC Davis Bee Symposium: Keeping Bees Healthy, set Saturday, March 3 in the UC Davis Conference Room on Alumni Drive.

We've had some rain in our area lately so you are probably seeing some weeds starting to grow in your garden or lawn. Among the few new weeds poking out in my landscape is dandelion, my husband's least favorite weed on Earth.

New leaders for three of the five UC ANR Strategic Initiatives have taken the helm for the three SI leaders who rotated off, effective Jan. 2. Jim Farrar, director of UC Integrated Pest Management Program, succeeds Cheryl Wilen as leader for Endemic and Invasive Pests and Diseases (EIPD).

In case you missed it...we have a winner in the 2018 Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest, sponsored by Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology. And the winner isdrumrollArt Shapiro.

I visited an onion field where I saw this interesting emergence pattern with annual bluegrass (Poa annua L.). Onion beds are listed in east-west orientation (as seen in pictures). We can see annual bluegrass emergence only on the south facing slopes and none on bed-tops or north facing slopes.

Unlike mosquitoes, spiders do not seek people in order to bite them. Generally, a spider doesn't try to bite a person unless it has been squeezed, lain on, or similarly provoked to defend itself.