Pest Management & Plant Health

Spring is finally here, but unfortunately so are the pests! While doing your spring cleaning or staying indoors due to our recent rain, you may have noticed some insects and spiders have moved in with you. Many pests are emerging from their winter rest, and taking cover from the cool, wet weather.

The Pest Management Strategic Plan for Processing Tomatoes in California (see attachment) was published in May 2021 and encompasses a wealth of information on pest issues and farming practices for processing tomatoes in California.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we'd like to highlight some festive insects that you'll find wearing green for the holiday! Green Fruit Beetles Also known as June beetles or figeater beetles, these large, metallic green beetles are an occasional pest of ripening fruit.

Spring into the following free webinars from the UC IPM Urban & Community Program! Held every third Thursday from 12:00-1:00pm PDT, these informative webinars will help you identify, prevent, and control pests in and around the home, garden, and landscape! April 20, 2023: Aphids, Scales, and Mealybu...

Termite Awareness Week is a campaign created by the National Pest Management Association to call attention to the damage termites can cause to structures and to make sure residents and professional pest managers understand how to prevent and deal with termite infestations.

A newly published book, Honey Bee Biology, authored by UC Davis honey bee scientist Brian Johnson, a leading expert on the behavior, genomics and evolution of honey bees, will be released June 6 by Princeton University Press.

This Grade Chart represents the average Insecticide Efficacy Grade against alfalfa weevil larvae from experiments conducted in the Palo Verde Valley over the past five years, with applications being approximately 18-20 gallons/acre to ensure excellent foliar coverage.

In Northern California, Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana L.) has been around for a long time and is typically found in disturbed areas and fallow sites such as: under power lines, wooded areas, fences, pond edges, roadsides, etc. (Figure 1).

If you were a sand field cricket, you would not like horsehair worms. "The horsehair worm (Paragordius varius) is a long-lived parasite that infects arthropods, including the sand field cricket, Gryllus firmus," says biologist Amy Worthington, assistant professor, Creighton University, Omaha, Neb.

It wouldn't make the news, even if it were a "Slow News Day." "Lady in Red Climbs Neon-Pink Petals in Search of Aphids." Lady beetles, aka ladybugs, are coming out of their winter hibernation now and they're hungry. Aphid-hungry. We spotted this lady beetle Feb.