GreenMethods.com
Bug Blog Archives for 2009 April

Sales are great, but quite often they occur after the point in time you actually need them. A Christmas sale after Christmas is a good example. The best sales are those which occur exactly when you need the product — and that’s what we’re doing. A lot of people want and need our sponge-carried parasitic nematodes at this time of year, so we decided to lessen the general pain of the economy and offer them for a discounted price for a limited time. Details to follow.

Continue reading “Huge Spring Nematode Sale” »

Alternative Pest Control at the Production Level: Biocontrols in the Real World

This installment is part two of a two part series.

Faced with the fact that the vast majority of foliage plant producers do not employ biocontrols or alternative pest control methods during the production cycle, the interiorscaper who strives to reduce the use of chemical pesticides on plants used in interior plantscapes is faced with a dilemma: how can I institute an alternative pest control program on plants that have been raised using significant quantities of chemical pesticides throughout their production?

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Alternative Pest Control at the Production Level: An Interiorscaper’s Perspective

This installment is part one of a two part series.

Interiorscapers as a group are a peculiar lot. Many of us embrace the “green” movement and see our products and services as a pragmatic way to enhance the environmental quality of our homes and businesses while providing us with a comfortable living. But we are also the consummate small businessperson: our priority is keeping our plants clean and attractive and our clients happy. This sometimes results in episodes of cognitive dissonance — the discomforting feeling that one gets when trying to juggle two contradictory beliefs simultaneously — such as when we try to embrace modern, alternative methods of pest control while satisfying our prime directive: to maintain our clients’ plants in an optimally healthy and pest-free condition. At the root of that conflict is the way the cycle of pest control begins at the production nursery level, and it can pose vexing problems for us interiorscapers when we put those plants onto the job.

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Anytime the ground’s not frozen. That’s when you can apply milky spore disease, Bacillus popilliae, to your lawn to help control Japanese beetle grubs and others. But despite this huge window of opportunity, the majority of people apply in the spring or early summer. Well, we won’t argue and will instead go with the flow. Thus, we’re having a short spring sale on milky spore products.

Continue reading “Milky Spore Disease… For Less” »

The best way to succeed with a perfectly green biological filth-fly control program is to devise a proper fly parasitoid release schedule and sticking with it for the duration. How do we know this? Years of experience and years of very satisfied fly control customers. Most of whom have been doing this with us since the early ’90s when we began. The expression, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, comes to mind. These customers are still doing it because it works, and if you value the benefits of having fewer flies around your livestock and farm (or your yard), it’s worth the money. Maybe you should do this, too.

Continue reading “2009 Biological Fly Control Program” »

Arthropod Pest and Natural Enemy Interactions: Can Pests Become Resistant to Natural Enemies?

Biological control is a well-known pest management strategy available to greenhouse managers to “manage” or “regulate” arthropod (insect and mite) pests. As opposed to discussing the basic concepts of biological control and why it is important to implement some type of biological control, this article will focus on the arthropod pest-natural enemy interactions and characteristics of arthropod pests.

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