Pest Management & Plant Health

They may seem too tiny to do much damage to a mature, healthy tree, but invasive shothole borers (ISHB) are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of trees in Southern California. These beetles bore into trees and infect them with Fusarium dieback, a fungal disease that kills the trees.

Some plants thrive even in dry years, while others need wet years to really blossom. It's no surprise, then, that this year the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Fresno office has received several inquiries about potentially toxic plants and how to deal with them.

It's Friday Fly Day! Time to post an image of a fly. Or two flies. On a cockroach. The scenario: a large cockroach drowned in a small water trough located near downtown Vacaville, Calif., and when the water drained, the roach slid out. It proved to be a feast for green bottle flies.

The August edition of the IPM Hour features Kristen Bowers from New Mexico State University discussing her research into using climate-adapted insect biocontrol agents to control puncturevine in the West.

The authoritative source for current knowledge of ISHB/FD is the UC IPM Pest Note on Invasive shothole borers (ISHB), authored by Beatriz Nobua-Behrmann, UC Cooperative Extension, Orange County; Akif Eskalen, UC Davis Plant Pathology; Stacy Hishinuma, USDA Forest Service; Shannon Lynch, State Univ.

Frank Zalom never set out to study insect science. The UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, an icon in the entomological world, especially in integrated pest management (IPM), grew up thinking that he might be working for the telephone company.

You've likely come across a bee, wasp, or hornet this summer. While these insects can cause painful stings, and allergic reactions for some, they are not usually aggressive. In the landscape, they can be beneficial by providing pollination to plants and, for some, preying on pest insects.

Ten years ago, Guy Kyser wrote an excellent blog on the identification of Northern California's Big Three invasive thistles.

Moths will grab the spotlight at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on Saturday, July 22 but besides Lepidopterists (those who study butterflies and moths), attendees can meet and greet dipterists (those who study flies), learn about mosquitoes from the author of a newly published children...

Congrats to the lab of nematologist Shahid Siddique, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, for excellent presentations at the 62nd annual meeting of the Society of Nematologists (SON), held July 9-14 in Columbus, Ohio: Alison Coomer Blundell, who will be a fourth-year doctoral candidate...