Integrated Pest Management

Playing Pest Friends

At their annual meeting this summer, Western SARE state coordinators came together and played an educational board game about managing pests. Their experience was similar to other groups who indicate that they learn more by doing than listening. Jason Thomas and Grant Loomis, extension educators at the University of Idaho, received a Western SARE grant […]

Reasons to Like Wine

Reasons to like wine Number 462: It can be good for New Mexico’s native bees and other pollinators. Even though grapevines are largely self pollinating and don’t need insects like bees or butterflies to produce fruit, vineyards themselves can provide habitat for native pollinators and other insect species, benefiting both the grower and the environment. […]

Creating Community Partnerships to Improve Oregon Pest Management

A few recent IPM extension projects in Oregon didn’t begin the way so many extension efforts do. They didn’t start with a workshop. They didn’t start with a field day. They didn’t start with teaching or any sort of telling. They started with a question. “We’d ask, ‘If Oregon State University was doing all the […]

WSARE Quick Guide: Welcome in Barn Owls to Provide Rodent Control

Quick guide to encouraging barn owls to provide rodent control.

Wireworms in Western Washington

Christine Langley has successfully run Lopez Harvest organic farm on Lopez Island in Washington state’s famed San Juan Islands for more than two decades. But for most of that, she wasn’t fighting wireworms.  Those showed up about a dozen years ago, and have made her job a lot harder.  “I grow a lot of lettuce […]

Wireworm Biology and Nonchemical Management in Potatoes

This bulletin is one of a series on organic potato production developed by OSPUD, a collaboration among Oregon State University personnel and 11 farmers operating diversified organic vegetable farms. The purpose of OSPUD is to improve potato quality and profitability through a participatory learning process and on-farm, farmer-directed research. The first two years of OSPUD […]

Training Ag Professionals in IPM

A multi-state program in the Columbia River Basin is improving agricultural practices by training young ag professionals in integrated pest management.

Earwigs Found to be Beneficial in Apple Orchards

Sustainable Agriculture Fact Sheet                                           April 2020 Crop: Apples                            Need: Discovering whether earwigs are pest, neutral or beneficial insects in apple orchards States: Washington                                                                                                                                    Background: Woolly apple aphids are a serious pest in apple orchards and are difficult to control with current insecticides. However, beneficial insect predators can […]

Fresh Growth Podcast

Fresh Growth: Approaches to a More Sustainable Future from Western Ag Practitioners introduces you to farmers and ranchers from around the western United States who are finding innovative sustainable practices that enrich the natural resources we all care about. These successful multi-generational operations experiment with new ideas and are making it pay. Listen in as […]

Using Beneficial Insects to Combat Pests and Engage Growers

Sustainable Agriculture Fact Sheet                     July 2020 State: California                                Commodity: Wine grapes Need: An economical way to control leafroll virus, which is spread by vine mealybugs Summary: Leafroll virus is infecting California grapevines at an alarming rate due to an aggressive insect vector, the vine mealybug.  Leafroll virus infections reduce crop yield and quality, decrease a […]

Farmer and Rancher Research in the West

Making changes on the farm or ranch involves taking risks. One or two years spent experimenting can lead to a financial hit too difficult to recover from. That’s where Western SARE’s Farmer/Rancher and Professional + Producer grants help out. Grantees, like the ones highlighted in this report, come up with the possible solution to a problem they face on their farm or ranch, propose a way to research the idea, and then Western SARE provides the critical support needed to experiment.The projects explore sustainable solutions to problems through on-farm research, demonstration, and education. It is expected that the results are shared with other producers. The highlights you’ll read here are just a fraction of the creative projects attempting to solve real-world problems the grants programs have funded. 

IPM for Coffee Berry Borer

When the coffee berry borer arrived in Hawaii 2010, Suzanne Shriner had a hard conversation with her parents. “I sat down with them at the kitchen table and told them we might have to get out of the coffee business,” she remembered. “It was a pretty sober moment, and it wouldn’t have been a good […]

Winter 2019 Simply Sustainable

In this Issue:

• Regenerative Ag
• Pollinators and Canola
• Cover Crop Resources
• Pioneer Award
• and more

Winter 2018 Simply Sustainable

In this Issue:

• Building Capacity for Blackfeet Farmers
• Training for Micronesian Extension Agents
• A New Breed of Ranchers
• Agritourism Opportunities
• Benefits from Owls 
• And more

Pueo are Much More than Pest-Management

If you can encourage a threatened native species, help control non-native pests, benefit the state’s farmers and preserve a culturally important icon, you’ve hit an ecological grand slam.  That’s exactly what the University of Hawaii’s Melissa Price is trying to do with the islands’ pueo owls. The striking, dark birds are a species of short-eared, […]