Pest Management

Equipment and Tools for Small-Scale Intensive Crop Production Guide and Videos

This publication focuses on equipment and tools for intensive crop production on a small-scale commercial farm. It details equipment and hand tools for soil preparation, planting, weed management, and harvesting. The use of appropriate equipment and tools, both in terms of size and practicality, can increase production efficiency and profits while minimizing disturbance to soil […]

Maquinaria y Herramientas Para la Producción De Cultivos Intensivos a Pequeña Escala

Resumen Esta publicación se centra en equipos y herramientas para la producción intensiva de cultivos en una granja comercial a pequeña escala. Detalla equipos y herramientas manuales para la preparación del suelo, la siembra, el manejo de malezas y la cosecha. El uso de equipos y herramientas apropiados, tanto en términos de tamaño como de […]

Training for the Future of Arizona’s Small-Scale Agriculture

When supply chains collapsed and grocery shelves sat empty in the first years of the COVID pandemic, many people got interested in growing their own food. Most of those didn’t have access to dozens or hundreds of acres of land. What land they could find were small urban plots, or suburban backyards, or maybe a […]

Light it Up! Using UV Light to Kill Powdery Mildew in Grapes

Instead of relying solely on fungicides to control powdery mildew on winegrapes, growers may one day – and one day reasonably soon – have an effective non-chemical option: light. Specifically, light in the form of spore-killing ultraviolet UV-C radiation, delivered directly to the plant by a self-driving tractor moving through vineyard rows autonomously at night. […]

Breaking the Barriers to IPM Adoption in Wenatchee Pears

For all the promise, potential and profound benefits integrated pest management can bring, there’s also this harsh reality: IPM only works if people practice it. In some pear-growing regions in the Pacific Northwest, IPM is a widely accepted, effective and economical way to manage pear psylla and codling moth, the crop’s key insect pests. But […]

Hawaii Research Examines Ecological Pest Management and Values-Driven Farming

Agricultural researchers often measure success in terms of higher yields or higher profits, but a new project in Hawaii is looking at a third dimension of success: Growers’ personal values. “A lot of farmers make the transition to organic partially for commercial reasons, but it’s also a values-driven decision,” said Ben Wiseman, a third-year PhD […]

Studying the Ecology of Fear to Protect Chile in Colorado

Tiny aphids are causing outsized losses for chile pepper growers in Colorado, even though the insects don’t feed on that particular crop and don’t linger in it. Instead, aphids move through chile fields, especially after nearby alfalfa fields are cut. That wasn’t a problem until 2019 when alfalfa mosaic virus appeared in southern Colorado. Aphids […]

Boosting Beneficial Insects in Oregon’s Cherry Orchards

Eighty percent of Oregon’s cherries are produced in the Mid-Columbia Basin. Typically, when new orchards are planted, farmers leave the ground under the trees bare or plant grass. Farmers also regularly apply chemicals to control insect pests such as spotted wing drosophila, thrips, and leafhoppers, among others. However, planting mixed cover crops that include flowering […]

Idaho Student Researchers Work to Eradicate Pale Cyst Nematode

When the pale cyst nematode, Globodera pallida, was discovered in southeastern Idaho in 2006, potato exports in Idaho and the United States were severely impacted. The nematode, which can devastate a potato crop, is a quarantine pest regulated by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The Idaho infestation is found within […]

Ungulates: Hawaii’s Hooved Problem

Hooved mammals – ungulates in scientific parlance – aren’t native to the archipelago but have been brought to the islands over the past centuries. Now, population explosions of wild pigs, feral sheep and goats, big-horned mouflon sheep and axis and black-tailed deer are altering ecosystems, affecting fisheries, imperiling agriculture and causing economic harm. “If you […]

Reducing Weeds by 80% Using Solarization

La Buena Tierra farmer Maria de los Angeles Carrillo (Angeles) is delighted that her interest in researching a non-chemical pest management practice has reduced her weeds by 80%. Coquillo (nutgrass) was the exception and even that stubborn grass has been reduced greatly and grows weaker roots. Lab tests also demonstrated reduced Verticillium wilt in the […]

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 […]

Farmers Test Whether Cardboard Can Keep Bindweed at Bay

Bindweed can be the bane of farmers’ existence. The climbing vine spreads easily by seed and rigorous root system, choking off crops and other plants along the way. “Even when we till in the spring, we spend a huge amount of time hand weeding throughout the season to manage bindweed,” explained Jonah Sloven, who grows […]

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. […]

Cheatgrass-Eating Sheep

Wildfires in the West are inevitable and part of a natural, necessary ecological cycle, but invasive grasses like cheatgrass can make fires burn hotter, spread farther and cause more destruction. So, across the West, researchers, range managers, cattle ranchers and others are looking for ways to economically control cheatgrass and other invasive grasses on millions […]

Utah Vegetable Production & Pest Management Guide

Partially funded by Western SARE, the Utah Vegetable Production and Pest Management Guide is inclusive to all growers, whether commercial or hobbyist. Although content is specific to Utah, most content applies to the Intermountain West states. The book includes twelve chapters of specific production methods and comprehensive pest and treatment recommendations for crops representing brassicas, […]

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

Quick guide to encouraging barn owls to provide rodent control.

Specialty Crop Production in High Tunnels

A three-year, SARE-funded project focused on developing fruit and vegetable systems suited to high tunnel production in the high-elevation arid Intermountain West. Successful systems were developed for lettuce, tomato, squash and strawberry production. Work with brambles showed that methods suited to other regions were not locally appropriate. The following Utah State University Cooperative Extension fact […]

A Sunn Hemp Cover Crop for Soil Health and Nematode Management

These University of Hawaii fact sheets and virtual field day explain how to use sunn hemp as a cover crop to control weeds, nematodes and other pests, add soil nutrients, prevent erosion, and contribute to a more robust and complex community of beneficial nematodes. Available fact sheets include: