Invasives are pests! Learn more at our July IPM conference.
We tend to default to bugs — to insects — when we think about pests. But plant diseases and weeds are pests too. And all threaten our fields and farms, our forests and streams, our homes and...
View ArticleTick Trickery and Lyme Disease: the Great Imitator? Sometimes.
Remember the days when we could play with our tykes in tall grass near a wooded hedgerow? When we could wander at will through open meadows, picking wildflowers? When we could have impromptu picnics in...
View ArticleBiocontrols for Invasive Pest Help Save Mountain Forests
Biocontrols — organisms that help keep serious pests in check — are a key component of IPM. And sometimes they’re the only hope. Consider the lovely, lacy-needled hemlock tree, a member of the pine...
View ArticleIt’s Invasive Species Awareness Week all over the U.S.
It’s Invasive Species Awareness Week — now. Pay it heed. Invasive species, it turns out, are a huge deal in the US, in New York. Everywhere, in fact. Coping with invasive insects, pathogens and the...
View ArticleGot late blight in your garden? Here’s what to do.
An upside of last year’s dry growing season is that we had no reports in New York of late blight, the devastating disease of tomato and potato. But 2017 is shaping up to be a very different season. We...
View ArticleAbandoned fields: Weedy disaster or IPM opportunity?
Farmers across New York have been struggling with the overabundance of rain this year — meaning that some cornfields never got planted. The result? Weeds have really taken off. So what? If there’s no...
View ArticleInvasives IPM Update: ALB and oak wilt stand-ins
Back in mid-July, during Invasive Species Awareness Species Week, we wrote a post using asian longhorns beetle (ALB) and oak wilt as stand-ins for the multitude of invasive species already here or...
View ArticleIt’s Hay Fever Season — and the Culprit Unmasked
[OK … so this isn’t strictly IPM. But it does shed light on a glorious native plant that gets a bad rap for making the allergy-prone among us miserable — and its weedy relative, found in city and...
View ArticleSteer Clear of Ticks and the Diseases They Carry — the IPM Way
These days if you live near anything green — a suburban development, however humble or high-class; a neighborhood park where shrubs and meadow flowers grow — best you’d read up on ticks, be they...
View ArticleIt’s (still) tick season — and will be evermore
Sorry to bring up a sore subject, but it’s still tick season. And will be all year round. What … during winter? Really? Yes. But for starters here’s your pop quiz: A tick’s lifespan is three months ten...
View ArticleTicks and the freezing weather
“That is a bracing cold, an invigorating cold. Lord, is it cold!” – Sheldon Cooper It is inevitable that when the temperatures drop below zero we are asked “Will this extended period of extremely low...
View ArticleOne bug at a time: how biocontrol helps you, even in winter
Sure it’s winter. But many greenhouse growers work year-round. And what’s this about biocontrols? In fields, orchards, vineyards, and greenhouses—especially greenhouses—biocontrols are the predators...
View ArticleHops on top
Sometimes on a snowy evening there’s fine company to be had with good friends and a six-pack from your local brewery. So settle back and take a moment to savor what it took to get you there. Long ago...
View ArticleSo many acres, so little time: IPM’s answer to where the pests are
It might not look that way from your car window, but farmland covers 23 percent of New York. It’s the foundation of New York’s multi-billion-dollar agricultural economy—one that benefits all of us, no...
View ArticlePests, Pesticides and Proposals: Funding IPM Community Projects
Pests and pesticides—both can pose problems to our health, our environment, and our economy. At the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program (NYS IPM), we help New Yorkers address those...
View ArticlePoison ivy (like the Rolling Stones said …)
… and now, more than ever, poison ivy’s gonna make you itch. (The Rolling Stones) I remember the first time I had poison ivy. The particulars are long lost along memory lane. Even so, it was...
View ArticleWhat can I spray for …
What can I spray for ants and other critters? Nobody—not even an entomologist like me—wants to see critters in their home, office, school, or favorite restaurant. But see them we do. And unfortunately,...
View ArticleNew Field Crops and Livestock Coordinator Joins NYS IPM
Greetings! I’m Jaime Cummings, the new Field Crops and Livestock Coordinator at NYS IPM. My job? To work with field crop and livestock farmers on more than 3 million acres statewide who grow corn,...
View ArticleTick, Tack, Toe the Line: Lyme Disease and What to Do
You’ve all heard about them, right? Yeah, the little buggers sneak up on you, bite you, and—maybe—make you sick. Sometimes really sick. They’re not really bugs, of course, but tiny eight-legged...
View ArticleStop the Bite – Mosquito IPM
Lest you think we only care about ticks these days, another bloodsucker is at its prime. The hot, muggy, wet weather has created perfect conditions for buzzy, bitey mosquitoes. Besides itchy welts,...
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