Lygus bugs

I've been getting email and calls about small "stink bugs" on cruciferous crops lately.  I went out to our demonstration garden to see if I could rustle some up on what we have planted out there and I hit the jackpot.  I found Lygus bugs on the cabbage and some other plants (that I have no idea what they are...I went back out to look- they're fava beans).

Lygus bugs have a wide host range and have been found on over 350 plants.  These bugs will commonly begin the year in weedy areas and then move into adjacent areas (leading them into gardens and landscapes) when the weeds begin to decline.

Adults are about 1/4 of an inch long and come in a variety of colors (the ones I've been seeing are brownish-black with red dots on the tip of the hemelytra).  They have whitish markings behind the head and on the wings.  The back half of the front wing is held downward at an angle (so it appears that the bug backed into a wall).  Nymphs look similar to the adults, but are usually a yellow-green in color and lack fully developed wings.

Weed management is very important to help keep populations of tarnished plant bug in check.  Manage weeds to keep the bugs from colonizing areas adjacent to gardens and landscape areas. You can try vacuuming them up with a hand-held vacuum. Pesticides can be used to knock down heavy populations.  Look for active ingredients such as insecticidal soap, azadirachtin, pyrethrins, or pyrethroids.

2016 All Bugs Good and Bad Webinar Series- FREE!

Please join in for the 2016 All Bugs Good and Bad Webinar Series.  This webinar series provides information about good and bad insects.  Webinars are free and open to everyone.   We will discuss how you can help pollinators and other good insects by using pesticides properly.  We will also talk about how to control insects we think of as bad, like fire ants, vegetable bugs, a new invasive fruit fly, and cockroaches. We will even have a webinar about snakes, although they're not really insects but can be a pest or a beneficial, depending on how you look at them.  

Webinars will be on the first Friday of each month at 1 p.m. Central time.  The webinars are brought to you by the following eXtension Communities of Practice: Imported Fire Ants, and Urban IPM; and by the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service,  and the University of Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture.

The first webinar of the year will be on February 5, titled "Don't Let the Insects Eat Your Vegetables" and presented by Ayanava Majumdar, Extension Specialist with Alabama Cooperative Extension System.

Where do bugs go when it rains?

It's raining!  Wait.  Let me repeat that. IT'S RAINING!!!!

Since it's a rainy day here in Central Texas, I decided to answer a question I often get when I speak to children about insects.  Where do they go when it rains?  If you want to know what they do when it gets cold, see this post.

We all know that insects don't carry around umbrellas to protect themselves from the rain, but should they?  It often depends on the insect's size and the heaviness of the rainfall.  Obviously, the heavier the rainfall, the more difficult it would be for insects to fly.  Some insects are capable of flying during rainfall and can withstand direct hits from raindrops (see this post from Scientific American on researchers bombarding mosquitoes with raindrops).  Other insects do not fare so well so they tend to hide.  Hiding in protected places such as under leaves, leaf litter on the ground, under rocks or logs, cracks, crevices, under the eaves of buildings.

Saturday, May 29th- Become a Garden Detective!

Get out your calendars and save the date!! No, I'm not getting married or anything (my husband might get a bit upset.....). Susan Decker, a Travis County Master Gardener, and I will be teaching anyone who wants to attend how to become a garden detective. Here's the skinny:

When: Saturday, May 29, 2010 10am-Noon

Where: Zilker Botanical Garden
2220 Barton Springs Rd.
Austin TX 78746

What: learn how to diagnose common problems in the garden

Who: Susan will cover plant diseases; Wizzie (that's me!) will cover insect problems

Here's the official blurb (it's much more eloquent than my ramblings):

Just when you think you've done everything right by your plants, one of them starts to go downhill. One of the biggest challenges for gardeners is correctly diagnosing plant problems and finding effective, safe solutions. Is your plant dying because of an insect, environmental or disease problem? Join us to learn the causes of plant problems, the process for diagnosing plant problems, and preventive garden management techniques. This seminar is free and open to the public. It is presented by the Travis County Master Gardeners Association, a volunteer arm of the Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Travis County. For information, see http://www.tcmastergardeners.org or call the Travis County Master Gardener's help desk at (512) 854-9600.

Feel free to bring samples of insects/ damage.

Brrrrr- Baby It's Cold Outside!

Have you been outside today? I would think that somehow I got transported back to Ohio if I weren't currently sitting in my office in Austin listening to Christmas carols. Holy crikey- it's COLD! There was a reason that I moved to Texas....to avoid the COLD!

The good things about the cold turn in the weather:
1. hubby is excited that it might snow (being a Texan, things like snow excite him while I've had my fill of snow while tramping around Ohio State- walking to class in snow/slush & freezing temperatures is not a good time)
2. the boy might get to see snow for the first time- great photo op, right?
3. mulled cider and hot chocolate- mmmmm
4. deer chili- double mmmmm
5. it helps my Christmas spirit

Okay, so onto the buggy part of this post. I often get questions- mostly from children- about where bugs go during the winter. Adaptations that insects have to survive the winter:

1. Migration
Insects move to a location where temperatures are not as cold. The most well known example of migrating insects is probably the Monarch butterfly.

2. Freeze tolerance
Some insects are able to survive having some of their body tissues frozen. When temperatures warm up, the insect "thaws out" and goes about it's business.

3. Communal living
Many insects will cluster together and use collective heat to survive freezing temperatures. Ladybugs are a good example. The video below is a clip I took on a recent trip to Ohio. The ladybugs begin aggregating each fall and usually find their way into my parent's house. The video shows them gathering on my grandparent's motorhome.



4. Insect antifreeze
(read on...this is going to make great dinner conversation for you tonight!)
Some insects produce glycerol, a compound similar to anti-freeze, in the fall to prepare for overwintering. These compounds allow body tissues to supercool and remain above their freezing point.

So now that you know how the bugs are going to survive tonight, what do you have in mind to keep warm?

Podcast Poll- to podcast or not to padcast?

Lately, I've been a bit obsessed with podcasts- I think they are great. Some I listen to for information others for entertainment. I seem to be gravitating towards kid-related stuff like Pedicast and Manic Mommies (two of my favorites), but it's gotten me thinking about a bug podcast to answer questions about your bug problems.

So here's the thing....I don't know if enough people would be interested in listening to a podcast. I know everyone has a limited amount of time, so would you, my audience, take the time to download a podcast to listen to while out exercising, while driving, while checking email on the computer? Before I devote the time figuring out what I need to do to get a podcast up and running, I decided to take a poll (actually 2 polls). Both polls are located on the right side of the blog page. It would be really helpful to me if you could jet over and take the poll so I can decide if I should venture into podcasting world.

So please, please, please take the poll on my blog page. The poll will stay open until June 12th. Thanks!

Welcome!

Well, this is something new for me. I've been considering starting a blog, but have been a bit wishy-washy about doing so. I finally decided to take the leap and come up to date with what's going on in the world. I guess I didn't understand the purpose of blogging, but considering that I essentially do the same thing using an email list I've been compiling the past several years, I figured this might work out to my (and your) benefit. This way, I don't have to keep track of everyone's email when they change it and you benefit by having the option to unsubscribe whenever you want, or hopefully, tell your friends to subscribe as well.

This blog will enable me to communicate about IPM, mainly structural and landscape, and provide tips on how to best manage pests. Occasionally, I might throw in some odd things or random facts about bugs, just because they are truly amazing creatures. It's so great to have a job that I can mess around with bugs and get paid to do it! And mom, you thought I'd never get a job being an entomologist!

So, I hope that you'll subscribe and join my excitement for the very buggy world around us!