Western Integrated Pest Management Center

In California and throughout the West, land managers face huge challenges on huge acreage. Threats include invasive annual grasses, climate change and changing fire regimes. And those threats combine – the invasive grasses outcompete native perennial grasses and become flash fuels that exacerbate wildfires in landscapes already vulnerable because of climate change. 

To combat the combined threat, UC Davis researchers are testing a burn-and-replant method as a combined solution.

If the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea had a job interview, it would tout itself as adaptable and resilient. Adaptable, because its related disease, Botrytis blight, affects multiple vegetable transplants, including tomatoes, broccoli and cabbage. Resilient, because its short life cycle and genetic diversity allow it to develop resistance to fungicides faster than other fungi. Those traits have made Botrytis blight one of the most common diseases in California nurseries.

“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.

This report documents integrated pest management improvements in the strawberry industry by comparing pest management strategic plans from 2003 and 2021, including adaptations to the myth bromide ban, newer insecticides that better align with IPM principles and technological advances including bug vacuums.

Call it puncturevine, goatheads, devil’s thorn or whatever creative collection of expletives you mutter after sitting, kneeling or stepping barefoot onto it, Tribulus terrestris is one unpleasant plant. But with funding from the Western Integrated Pest Management Center, a researcher in New Mexico is measuring the cold-hardiness of weevils from different climactic zones to see if biocontrol efforts in cool northern climes could be boosted by importing warm-weather weevils from southern deserts.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pest managers are familiar with the concept of using degree days to predict pest outbreaks. Plants – at least in part – also develop based on temperature, so a team in Oregon is adapting a degree-day modeling system built for pest management to make a tool for vegetable growers to better plan their planting and harvesting dates.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

As pests go, wild pigs are huge – and hugely effective.