By Bruce Wenning
Not all plant diseases are caused by parasitic microbes, some are caused by parasitic weeds. The dodder vine is one of those weeds. Dodder attaches itself to healthy plants and makes them more vulnerable to other diseases and insect pests. Find out all about the dodder lifecycle and best practices for ridding your landscape of this fascinating but noxious vine.
By Emily May
One of the most fulfilling aspects of spending most of my time at home over the past few months has been watching the flowers in my yard blossom and buzz with bees, flies, butterflies, hummingbirds, and more. I also notice when things go awry, like when I spotted deformed flower heads on my bee balm (Monarda fistulosa) and later on my purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). What was going on and what could I do about it without the use of harmful pesticides which pose risk to both humans and insects alike.
By Karen Boussolini
Bees are smart. They recognize high-quality food and habitat. The buzz has gone out that my house is a happening place for carpenter bees. In a quest to rid my house of carpenter bees, understand their life cycle, and find alternatives that don’t involve them eating my house I discovered some simple steps to save both my house and these gentle beneficial insects.
by Bruce Wenning
There are many garden pests out there, but this paper describes several of the more commonly encountered pests in the garden and provides information about options for control.
by Joe Magazzi
Get the latest on organic treatments for lawns in autumn. No aspects of organics have come further along in the last couple of years than organic weed and pest control – with major advances in technology and knowledge available to growers, designers, and applicators.
by Bud Reaves, Anne Arundel Forestry Board
Mantises are one of the most ferocious predators in the animal kingdom. Able to capture and kill prey much larger than themselves, they have adapted into efficient, ruthless hunters and are valuable in the control of insect pests; however, exotic mantises may do more harm than good where they become too numerous
by Bruce Wenning Introduction There are many species of bark beetles in the United States which are destructive to both hardwood and softwood tree species. Some have been historically devastating to many valuable timber species because certain bark beetle species kill their host trees when large populations build up to the point of overtaking their…
The spotted lanternfly is a non-native sap-feeding planthopper also known as the lanternmoth. The first sighting of the spotted lanternfly in the United States was in Berks County, Pennsylvania in 2014. In 2017 a single individual was found in Delaware in November and a few days later in New York. January 2018,…
by Emily May Conservation biological control is a science-based pest management strategy that seeks to integrate beneficial insects back into the landscape for natural pest control, ultimately reducing and in some cases eliminating the need for pesticides. Farm landscapes can provide food and shelter for pollinators and other beneficial insects, boosting populations of these insects…
by Lisa Tewksbury In the early 1990s New England acquired a new pest of lilies from Europe, the lily leaf beetle (Lilioceris lilii), which made growing lilies to their full potential almost impossible. The adult is a beautiful red beetle, but the immature stage is a larva that can defoliate lily leaves and has the…
by Heather Faubert Two general statements about droughts, insects, and diseases hold true: Most plant-feeding insects tend to survive very well under drought conditions. Plant diseases are not very troublesome during droughts. All insects can acquire various fungal disease and these diseases generally need high humidity. Similarly, most plant diseases need rain or at least…
by Bruce Wenning Sawfly insects are in the order Hymenoptera that includes bees, ants, wasps, parasitic wasps, and sawflies. Metamorphosis is complete: egg, larva, pupa, adult (Borror, Triplehorn and Johnson, 1989). Sawfly larvae differ from larvae in the order Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) by lacking noticeable body hairs, having a well-developed head, and possessing more…
