Pest Management & Plant Health

The Beatles sang "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The elm leaf beetles and their larvae don't want to hold your hand--unless perhaps you're holding a elm leaf that they can eat. A recent walk down the 200 block of Buck Avenue, Vacaville, California, revealed the damage this pest does.

Telltale Roots: Secrets From the Underground As a newbie Master Gardener (class of 2020), I am constantly reminded of how much I don't know and how much more I need to learn. I also find myself looking at my garden in a very different way.

From the Weeders of the West blog 07/14/2021 Vineyard floor management can be divided into two areas, the area under the vine and the area between the rows. Cover crops are often planted between the rows and mowed as needed during the season.

They say good news comes in threes. Sometimes it comes in fives! Congrats to the five UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty members for their outstanding academic achievements.

UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Nio, a honey bee scientist and educator who serves all of California and is a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, was recently promoted to associate specialist, effective July 1.

If you have a gardening question about a plant with concerning symptoms, you can submit details and photos using our Ask a Master Gardener Survey. But what if we can't tell what's wrong from your photos? If this is the case, we may ask you to drop off a sample to our office.

So here we have two cabbage white butterflies, a male and a female, fluttering around the catmint (Nepata) and lavender (Lavendula) in our pollinator garden.

Marie Jasieniuk is a professor with the Dept. of Plant Sciences at UC Davis. A major pathway of introduction of non-native invasive plants into new geographical areas is the global horticultural trade in ornamental plants.

Originally published in the Summer 2021 issue of Utah Pest News. Many problems that gardeners experience with tomato plants are not related to insect pests or diseases. Rather, they are associated with adverse growing conditions due to the environment or production practices.

Poison oak is a common native plant in California, growing everywhere from oak woodlands to urban parks. Chances are, you or someone you know has suffered from a rash due to poison oak at some point. The best way to avoid exposure to poison oak is knowing how to identify it.