Lesson 12 – Sustainable Pest Management Encompasses Whole Farm Systems Thinking
Start Time is 11:00 AM Pacific Time
Once you RSVP, a Zoom link will arrive in the confirmation email.
Presenters: David Headrick, Cal Poly SLO & Devin Carroll, PCA
David Headrick is a specialist in basic insect biology, invasive insect species and their effects on the environment and economies, biological pest management, and native and introduced pollinators including European honeybees. Headrick teaches courses in agricultural pest management, vertebrate pest management and biological control and conducts research on insect pest management in vegetable, citrus and greenhouse cropping systems. He can speak to the use of biological control in pest management, an approach that uses beneficial insects that prey on pest species to achieve sustainable pest control without the need for pesticides. Over the years he’s conducted extensive research searching for and establishing beneficial predators in California. Headrick earned his Ph.D. from UC Riverside, where he studied biological control of weeds and became a specialist in tephritid fruit fly ecology and behavior. His research on agriculturally important insects and other research has resulted in 100 publications and over 130 professional presentations.
Devin Carroll is a private Pest Control Advisor, mostly retired, in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Over a 35-year career, with thousands of hours observing mealybugs and their natural enemies on grape vines, Devin made numerous discoveries contributing to understanding the interactions. Devin keeps a webpage documenting his knowledge of pest management on grapes and other crops. Devin earned his Ph.D. in Entomology in 1979 from the University of California at Riverside.
Upon successfully completing this lesson, participants will be able to:
- Understand how Pheromone mating disruption works for California red scale management in commercial citrus production.
- Understand how the benefits of using mating disruption in combination with augmentation biocontrol using Aphytis melinus works.
- How refugia created by ants or carpenter worms change the kinds of natural enemies attacking vine mealybugs.
- How biocontrol of vine mealybugs depends on two guilds of natural enemies, one working under the bark starting in the spring, and the other working in the canopy in the summer.
Continued Education Credits: We have applied for an expect to be approved for 1 CE credit from California Department of Pesticide Regulation and 1 CCA credit from American Society of Agronomy.
Photo at top: Lady Beetle Larva Eating Mealybug by Dr. Guido Bohne