Pest Management & Plant Health

Weeds in the landscape can be tough to manage. But there are many options for weed management using an integrated approach that combines nonchemical and chemical methods. Start by identifying the weeds you want to manage.

Newly published nematode research led by plant nematologist Shahid Siddique of UC Davis, formerly with the University of Bonn, is featured as the research highlight in the October 14th edition of The Plant Journal.

So here are all these milkweed bugs clustered on a showy milkweed leaf, Asclepias speciosa. It's early morning and the red bugs are a real eye opener.

Its not too late to register for the San Joaquin Valley Spray Application Short Course (November 12-14). Here's a link to the webpage: https://ucanr.edu/sites/SJVSprayApplication/Home/ Here's a link to the full agenda: https://ucanr.

Boom, just when you think everything is going fine, you run across a reminder that there are little things going on in the orchard that are out of our control.

What a catchy title: "Not So Heartless." Wait, there's more! "Not So Heartless: Functional Integration of the Immune and Circulatory Systems of Mosquitoes." This may not be the proverbial heart-stopping seminar, but it promises to be an eye opener by a medical entomologist and captivating speaker.

Client's Request: I'm a trapper in the Ag Department. We have been looking for plum bud gall mites in the county. I recently came across this plum tree with a huge growth or gall, it's 8" long and 7" wide on the underside of a branch, the tree is around 15 years old.

Advice for the Home Gardener from the Help Desk of the UC Master Gardener Program of Contra Costa County Gardener's request: I've just caught and identified what looks like a California Angle-wing Katydid.

The highly respected California Academy of Sciences greeted its 2019 Class of Fellows on Oct. 15, and one of them is a pollination ecologist from the University of California, Davis.

Pollination ecologist Neal Williams, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is now a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, a group of more than 450 distinguished scientists who have made notable contributions to science.