Pest Management & Plant Health

Position: Agronomy and Weed Management Advisor Applied Research and Extension (AP#22-06) Merced Location: This position will be headquartered in the UCCE Merced County office in Merced, CA but will also serve Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.

A cartoon character that looks suspiciously like a Department of Plant Sciences professor leads an animated, online tutorial that recently won a 2022 Gold Award from the Association for Communication Excellence.

It is getting close to the time we need to scout for weedy rice. Our team will be scouting known infested fields that are planted to rice this year. Troy Clark, our Rice Junior Specialist, will be starting in the next few weeks, and will be reaching out to growers and PCA's.

Western spotted cucumber beetles know how to hit the spot. Make that "multiple spots." These beetles, Diabrotica undecimpunctata, are agricultural pests that feed on roots, seedlings, flowers and foliage. And they can transmit diseases.

Several months ago, I got a question about weeds in an irrigated pasture. The mystery plants were slowly but surely taking over a significant proportion of the pasture, and the owner asked me to visit the property to identify the plants and options to control them.

During the 11th annual National Moth Week, one thing's for sure: Beekeepers won't be celebrating the beauty, life cycle, or habitat of the Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella), also known as "the honeycomb moth." It's a major pest of bee colonies that aren't maintained well.

Ever heard of Bot canker? "Bot" stands for Botryosphaeria which is a plant disease that results in cankers of trees and other woody plants. This fungal disease can be worse under drought conditions when trees are stressed.

If you have eucalyptus trees, you might have noticed white, crusty growth on the leaves. Or maybe you saw a sticky, blackened mess of fallen leaves under a eucalyptus tree. These are signs of the redgum lerp psyllid, one of the most common psyllid pests that damages eucalyptus trees in California.

From the CAPCA Adviser magazine :: June 2022 Whitney Brim-DeForest is a UCCE Rice and Wild Rice Advisor for Sutter, Yuba, Sacramento, and Placer Counties; Taiyu Guan is an Assistant Specialist in UCCE Sutter-Yuba Counties; Troy Clark is a Rice Junior Specialist for UCCE Butte County.

UC Davis distinguished professor Jay Rosenheim of the Department of Entomology and Nematology is the newly announced recipient of a campuswide Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award.