Posted on March 5, 2010 by rhallberg
Nobody wants cockroaches crawling around the kitchen. Yet in many schools, that is exactly what cafeteria staff have to live with, even after the pest control professional has come to spray. As administrators from two North Carolina school districts found out while participating in a 2003-04 study, integrated pest management can rid the school of pests—and keep them away.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: cockroach, cockroach allergens, cockroaches, IPM vs conventional, School Environmental Protection Act, School IPM | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 26, 2010 by rhallberg
When Roundup® entered the market in the early 1970s, it seemed to be an herbicide dream come true. Inexpensive, effective and non-persistent in the environment, glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup®, gave most users few things to complain about. Roundup® was cheaper than many other herbicides, so farmers could use it throughout the growing season with little economic impact. Farmers also enjoyed weed-free fields, and with the introduction of Roundup Ready crops in the 1990s, spraying weeds in developing fields became easier. National Park Service staff even use glyphosate to kill invasive weeds in the forest because it effectively controls vegetation and has low mammalian toxicity.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: crop rotation, glyphosate, GMO, herbicide resistance, integrated pest management, integrated weed management, Roundup, superweeds, transgenic crops | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 24, 2010 by jimvankirk
The New York IPM Program, one of the first state IPM programs and a model for many others, faces extinction. After three decades of impact developing crop protection methods and teaching farmers how to use them, enhancing environmental protection, human health AND profitability, the program faces the budgetary axe of Governor Paterson, whose new budget zeroes it out.
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Filed under: Budget | Tagged: budget cuts, funding, investment, IPM, New York, NY IPM | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 17, 2010 by rhallberg
Initially, dry ice, hand warmers, and chemical lures may not seem to have much in common, but according to researchers at Rutgers University, together they make a good bed bug trap. According to a 2009 refereed article published in the Journal of Economic Entomology, an effective attractant for bed bugs may help detect early infestations or confirm that populations have been eliminated.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: bed bugs, hotels, Housing, integrated pest management, IPM, IPM Centers | Leave a Comment »
Posted on February 6, 2010 by jimvankirk
President Obama’s USDA budget for fiscal year 2011 was released early this week, and does not contain any request for the Integrated Research, Education, and Extension Competitive Grants Program (Section 406). This program, often abbreviated as “Section 406″, has been the funding source for several major IPM programs, including Regional IPM Centers, Crops at Risk (CAR), Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program (RAMP), and the Methyl Bromide Transitions (MBT) program.
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Filed under: Budget, Uncategorized | Tagged: AFRI, Integrated Programs, IPM Centers, President's budget request, Section 406 | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 5, 2010 by rhallberg
As states continue to struggle with tight budgets, one of the casualties is often state University Extension programs. Delta Farm Press editorial director Hembree Brandon explains how, in several states, Extension specialists are leaving universities for the private sector, and universities are favoring high dollar research grants at the expense of small Extension budgets. Can research and extension afford to be mutually exclusive? Click here to read the article.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: agriculture, Extension, funding, University | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 26, 2010 by rhallberg
In the winter issue of Southern Exposure, you’ll find a story about a relatively new pest that has been “bugging” bees in the southeast. The pest, the small hive beetle, is too small for the eye to see, but big enough to bully entire colonies into leaving their nests.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: CCD, colony collapse disorder, honeybees, pollinators, small hive beetle, varroa mite | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 8, 2009 by rhallberg
The blog post below was written by Mike Merchant, urban entomologist at Texas AgriLife Extension Service, in response to the recent introduction of H.R. 4159: the School Environmental Protection Act. Those who are not familiar with the bill can click here to read it. The bill seeks to reduce or eliminate pesticide use in schools. The bill has both its proponents and its critics.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: HR 4159, Pesticide reduction, School Environmental Protection Act, School IPM | Leave a Comment »
Posted on November 19, 2009 by rhallberg
In a small niche of the forests of China, Korea and Japan, the Asian longhorned beetle evolved unnoticed. A hardwood tree pest with a black and white specked abdomen and long antennae, it survived in a pocket of hardwood trees amidst a largely evergreen Asian forest. Because the longhorned beetle feeds on the heartwood of hardwood trees only, the beetles’ populations remained low.
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Asian longhorned beetle, exotic invasives, hemlock woolly adelgid, integrated pest management, invasive insects, invasive species | 1 Comment »
Posted on November 5, 2009 by jimvankirk
