Here are summaries of some of the IPM research, innovations and projects going on in California, or benefitting California agriculture, communities and natural areas. Projects listed here are not necessarily funded by the Western IPM Center.
Research Aims to Build an Integrated Management Plan for Organic Cotton
Comparing the pest-management power of conventionally grown cotton and organically grown cotton is like pitting the New York Yankees against local Little Leaguers. Yet with 20,000 acres of organically certified land in Arizona growing vegetable and field crops, organic cotton could be an important, and profitable, rotation crop.
Plant Risk Evaluator Tool Helps Identify Potentially Problematic Plants
The easiest pest to manage is the one that’s not there. That’s why prevention and avoidance are first two principles of integrated pest management’s “PAMS Approach,” with monitoring and suppression following behind. It’s also the rationale behind the Plant Risk Evaluator Tool, an online database to evaluate the potential for ornamental and horticultural plants to become invasive weeds in different areas and environments.
Exploring a Fiery Method for Replacing Invasive Grasses
In California and throughout the West, land managers face huge challenges on huge acreage. Threats include invasive annual grasses, drier summers and changing fire regimes. To combat this combined threat, UC Davis researchers are testing a burn-and-replant method as a combined solution.
Work Group Aims to Make New Endangered Species Rules Workable
“If it’s so complex that it’s impossible, then no one wins.”
That was the key takeaway from a recent two-day workshop in Vancouver, Washington about implementing new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pesticide-use rules to protect endangered and threatened species.
Targeted Grazing Can Reduce Communities’ Vulnerability to Wildfire
With the West in a state of permanent drought and under constant threat of wildfires, it’s more important than ever for land managers to control undesirable vegetation. For fire-prone communities scattered throughout the West’s tinder-dry hills and woods, it can be a matter of life and death. One tool that can help manage vegetation is grazing.
Group Educates Health Care Providers about Pesticide-Related Illnesses
Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative-Medical produces educational materials and resources on pesticides, specifically targeting health care providers so they can recognize, treat and report pesticide-related illnesses.
Calculating the Economic Impact of Biting Stable Flies to California Dairies
Biting stable flies cause dairy cows to bunch tightly together in a defensive behavior, stressing the cows and reducing milk production. A multi-disciplinary team in California is measuring the impact and working to develop an IPM program to protect the cows and benefit producers.
Electric Weed Control Shows Promise
Start with a heaping helping of weeds in an orchard owned by an electrical engineer, then add in a weed scientist and a dash of Western IPM Center funding. What you get is electric weed control – a promising (dare we say shocking?) new way to control weeds in certain landscapes.
IPM Experience is Helping Schools Plan for Reopening Amid COVID Concerns
As students return to classrooms in the fall of 2020, coronavirus is very much on people’s minds. In the West, having an IPM program in place seems to be helping schools plan for reopening.
Helping Barn Owls Help Farmers
Barn owls are big, beautiful biocontrol.
“Barn owls are rodent-killing machines,” said Sara Kross, an assistant professor in environmental studies at Sacramento State University. “They are natural predators of gophers and voles which can be really horrible pests for agriculture.”
VIDEO: Studying the Ecological Impacts of Firebreaks
During wildfires, crew use bulldozers to cut firebreaks to remove vegetation and prevent the fire from spreading. It’s effective firefighting, but those bulldozer lines can have lasting impacts on the recovery of vegetation afterward. This video examines new research that is measuring those impacts and developing mitigations.
The Impact of Firebreaks in Southern California Sage Lands
During wildfires, crew use bulldozers to cut firebreaks to remove vegetation and prevent the fire from spreading. It’s effective firefighting, but those bulldozer lines can have lasting impacts on the recovery of vegetation afterward. New research is measuring those impacts and developing mitigations.
Dropping the Emerald Ash Borer Quarantine Could Impact the West
The U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has proposed lifting the domestic quarantine designed to slow the spread of emerald ash borer, an action that could speed the destructive insect’s introduction into Western states that have so far kept it at bay.
VIDEO: Helping Barn Owls Help Growers
Barn owls are rodent-killing machines – natural predators of gophers and voles and other rodent pests of agriculture. This video looks at new research helping growers use both the owls and chemicals, in concert and safely.
Feral Swine Wreak Havoc
As pests go, wild pigs are huge – and hugely effective.
Learning to Manage – and Live with – Coyotes in Southern California
Forrest Gump believed life was like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get inside. It’s much the same for graduate student Danielle Martinez, except she isn’t reaching for tasty chocolates. She’s digging into coyote stomachs as part of a larger research effort studying urban wildlife in Southern California.
Bed Bug Website and Work Group Share Knowledge and Resources
Through a website or workshop, the members of the Western IPM Bed Bug Work Group can teach you everything you ever wanted to know about bed bugs – and then some.
Pest or Beneficial: Earwigs in Apples
For growers, a fundamental element of integrated pest management is knowing what pest and beneficial species are in your fields. But what if there’s an insect and no one knows if it’s good or bad? That was the question for apple growers about earwigs.
Eco-Label Programs Promote IPM, but Aren’t Perfect
Eco-label programs have clear benefits and promote more sustainable pest-management and growing practices. They also provide certain benefits for growers but have downsides as well. Significant differences between the programs can make judging eco labels challenging for consumers, and with dozens of similar yet competing certification programs and standards, chaos is likely for the foreseeable future.
Tribal Bed Bug Workshop Dispels Myths
There is a lot of fear about bed bugs, and a stigma surrounding them that can keep some people from seeking help with a bed bug infestation. But bed bugs have been hanging around humans for a long time and aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Decoding Chemical Communications to Control Insects
University of California, Riverside chemical ecologist Jocelyn Millar identifies the chemical signals insects use to communicate, then synthesizes versions of them to help monitor, trap or disrupt their activities. Lygus bug is just one of dozens of species Millar and his team are working on. The common thread is that they all communicate chemically, and decoding those chemical signals can create new ways to control those species where they are pests.
VIDEO: Gold Spotted Oak Borer, or GSOB, in Southern California
The gold spotted oak borer is a tiny beetle causing huge damage in Southern California. It infests the region’s towering oak species – coast live oak and canyon live oak – and can kill a centuries-old tree in just a year or two. This video follows the beetle from San Diego to Los Angeles counties to see what damage it’s doing and what many fear may come next.
VIDEO: Gold Spotted Oak Borer, or GSOB, in Irvine Regional Park
Weir Canyon in the Irvine Regional Park is the only known infestation of gold spotted oak borer in Orange County – and land managers are working hard to protect the park and keep the destructive beetle from spreading.
VIDEO: Where to Get Good Gardening Advice
In this video, Ariel Agenbroad from University of Idaho offers great tips for home gardeners about where to get good pest-management advice.
VIDEO: Urban Farm Pest Pressures and Solutions
Learn about the pest pressures faced by urban farmers — and how integrated pest management provides economical solutions — with Ariel Agenbroad, Local Food & Farms Advisor with University of Idaho Extension.
VIDEO: Safflower Makes an Areawide IPM Program Work
In Kings County, California, safflower is an important rotational crop that improves the soil health and makes farming more productive. It’s also the key to an areawide IPM program that manages pests and reduces pesticide sprays.
Gold Spotted Oak Borer Threatens Oak Woodlands and Ecosystems across Southern California
From San Diego County to Los Angeles County, oak trees are dying rapidly, killed by a tiny beetle called the gold spotted oak borer. In areas where the invasive pest has become established, it’s killing 80 to 90 percent of the mature oaks – a dieback that’s fundamentally changing the landscape and the ecosystem the oaks support.
Hill-Climbing Cows May Bring Big Benefits to Western Rangeland and Ranchers
Conventional wisdom says cows don’t go up steep slopes. They don’t climb hills and don’t travel very far from water. But some cows never got that memo, and researchers are looking into whether naturally hill-climbing cows can provide production and environmental benefits in the rugged West.
Safflower Makes an Areawide IPM Program Work
Safflower, a low-value oil seed crop, is the key to an incredibly successful soil health and areawide integrated pest management program in California — and a great illustration of how IPM works.
School IPM Protects Kids from Pests and Pesticides
Both pests and pesticides are potentially harmful for kids and adults in schools. Common schools pests like the German cockroach or mice can carry disease and cause allergic responses. And children can be more at risk for harm from sprayed pesticides because of their behavior – playing on the floor or in grassy fields, for instance – and because of their developing physiology.
Grazing Guidelines for Noxious Weed Control
Researchers, ranchers, and land managers know that livestock grazing can be a valuable and selective noxious-weed management tool, and this guide summarizes all the effective techniques.
IPM Adoption is Widespread in the West
Many integrated pest management practices are so widely adopted in Western agriculture they have become conventional pest management. That is one of the key findings of a new report by the Western Integrated Pest Management Center titled Adoption and Impacts of Integrated Pest Management in Agriculture in the Western United States.
Identify Herbicide Damage to Crops and Ornamental Plants
Identifying nontarget crop and ornamental plant damage from herbicides has become much easier, with the launch of a new online photo repository by the University of California Statewide IPM Program.
Small Farms IPM Group Finds Invaders, Opportunities and Challenges
Bringing IPM information to small-scale farmers is a significant challenge, but one that has many potential benefits – including expanded opportunities to spot invasive pests and diseases.
New Guide Helps Land Managers Control Medusahead
As an ecosystem-transformer species, medusahead is among the worst weeds. Not only does it compete for resources with more desirable species, but it changes ecosystem function to favor its own survival at the expense of the entire ecosystem.
Center-Funded Website Helps Vets Treat Animals for Fleas, Ticks and Other Pests
Whether it’s cattle with face flies or a dog with ticks, vets throughout the West can now easily find the available treatment options in their state thanks to a new website built with Western IPM Center funding.
Boosting Invasive Species Cooperation Using Zebra Chip as a Model
When an invasive species is first detected in an area, the initial response is critical. Like with a cancer, the correct early detection and response can make a big difference in controlling the spread and severity of the outbreak.
Center Funding Helps Develop a Better Way to Control Prionus Beetles
Hop growers in the Northwest – as well as a sweet cherry, apple and other fruit growers around the nation – now have a new mating disruption tool to combat the Prionus beetle and its root-boring larvae, thanks to research funded in part by the Western IPM Center.
Spray Reductions in Cotton
For the past 15 years, researchers have been tracking pesticide use on cotton fields in the Southwest, and the reductions they’ve documented have been nothing short of remarkable.
Progress against Onion Pests
An update to the Pest Management Strategic Plan for dry bulb storage onions shows progress against thrips and Iris yellow spot virus, but still challenges to overcome.