I wrote a few months ago about the activity at RVI, when everything was all a-buzz with the beginning of spring. Now, here we are in late September, and I just overheard someone say, “Phew, too much going on!” And, it’s true. Our clients’ agricultural seasons have been peaking, and so has our production and supply; new customers are calling every day, and, still, there is so much else going on. There is a push to finish construction on a new on-site solar hydronic heating system, and a collaborative project with our neighbors to grade and pave our road and install more parking for visitors, continuing renovation of a caretaker residence that will accommodate summer entomology interns, ongoing landscaping, manufacturing improvements to the D-Vac vacuum insect net accessories, e-newsletter production, a website overhaul with the addition of on-line shopping, and the distribution of the new expanded and reorganized edition of the Catalog of Beneficials. So, with all of that going on, and more coming down the track, it’s not surprising that an occasional “Phew!” is heard, even out of Jan or Ron. While working here through seasonal changes is sometimes hectic, there is a dedication amongst the staff that continues to invigorate our work. We personally support the same ideas and perspectives that draw our customers to us in the first place, i.e., we are ecologically-minded individuals, working to better the planet. We are fortunate to help farmers and gardeners all over the world to develop new perspective, IPM strategies, and ecologically positive alternatives to using noxious chemicals and other environmentally degrading practices. Similar to the famous sentiments of teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe, who said, “I touch the future…I teach,” working with RVI clients allows each of us to touch the future of our environment, and that, too, invigorates our dedication. Reminding ourselves of that along with the occasional “Phew!” keeps us on track through all the changes a-buzz. Posted by Duke
Mini Lacewing Cards Part of Biocontrol Tool Kit for Gardeners
Published September 22, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: ant bait, ant bait stations, Defensor, Lacewing
Many gardeners think ‘ladybugs’ when they want to go after plant pests. When I have a chance, I try to pitch the benefits of green lacewing instead. Especially from late spring through early fall, lacewing eggs on cards are, in my experience, more reliable and versatile.
Convergent lady beetles (ladybugs) that are so popular prefer an aphid diet and migrate over large distances. They aren’t as interested as lacewing larvae are in a mixed diet that can include small caterpillars, scale crawlers, psyllids, mealybug, whitefly, in fact, just about any soft-bodied insect, mite or egg they run into.
A big feature of lacewing eggs is that they can develop in transit without harm. Buying ladybugs through the mail can be disappointing because they don’t travel very well. Most of the year when there are only stored ladybugs we can’t even guarantee that they will all be alive if they travel more than one day. Sometimes they make it, sometimes not. Hence, we recommend overnight service for ladybugs and resulting shipping costs can be extreme.
Lacewing eggs, on the other hand, are safe in transit while they are incubating. If they are traveling for three days, time enough to get those hungry larvae out on the prowl. A card of 1,000 lacewing eggs is a good amount for a yard with a few rosebushes and trees and some beds of flowers and vegetables. We encourage gardeners to put out lacewing two or three times during the warm season. They are more likely to colonize a yard that has flowers blooming throughout the season, providing nectar for the adult lacewing.
Because lacewing eggs can be shipped by ground or 3-day service, they can be combined with heavier items to economize on freight charges. A mini lacewing card costing $14.00 can be combined with a quart of Gourmet Liquid Ant Bait ($13.50) to meet Rincon-Vitova’s $25 minimum order. If you don’t have any dispensers for the ant bait and don’t want to bother with homemade ones, or if the cost of the AntPro ($26.00) is a barrier, add a pair of Ants-No-More dispensers for $7.50.
If ants aren’t going to be converging on your lacewing cards and cleaning the eggs off of them, then you can go to the next level with a combination with a mini lacewing card and a tray of 250 Aphidoletes for long-term aphid control. If caterpillars are a greater problem than aphids, add the mini-Trichogramma card for $16.00, understanding that they only attack the eggs laid by moths before they hatch into caterpillars. If powdery mildew plagues your garden later in summer, get a quart of Defensor to meet the minimum order with a final installment of lacewing eggs. Beneficial habitat seed mixes and quarts of orange oil or neem oil are other items to acquire with a shipment of lacewing eggs to build a basic toolkit for natural pest control.
Lindorus Kicks Christmas Trees Off Pesticide Treadmill
Published September 22, 2009 Product Articles 4 CommentsTags: Christmas trees, Lindorus, pine needle scale, pine scale
Lindorus eating pine needle scale
After years of spraying more pesticides and achieving less control, many of Ron Evans’ Christmas trees were left unfit to sell because of messy scale infestations. Farming for over 45 years, they began noticing pine needle scale 15 years ago. Scotch pine, red pine and Austrian pine were especially susceptible. In the mid 1990’s they used conventional pesticide spray based on monitoring and treating hot spots. Despite treatments, the scale crawlers spread and all trees with scale were eventually sprayed twice a year.
Within six years Evans reported, “Typically we were spraying all the fields three to four times per year. We tried to follow the recommendations found in pest control literature, but still found ourselves fighting a losing battle. Most of the literature recommends spraying scale when crawlers are present. Scale typically crawls for three days after hatching, and we logged as many as seven hatches the summer of 2000. The logistics of spraying 100,000+ trees in a three day window, three to four or more times per year became more than a nightmare.” Four E’s Trees was burning 1,500-3,000 trees every year that were ruined by scale pests.
Evans called the University of Illinois Department of Entomology. Among their suggestions was a small black lady beetle Lindorus lopanthae as a scale predator. Ready to try something new, Evans cooperated in a test of Lindorus beetles. He put a small number of Lindorus in a remote patch on his farm during June 2002, while continuing with his conventional program everywhere else. In November, while they were harvesting (with difficulty because of scale damage), he walked back to the remote field, where five months prior he had released the Lindorus beetles and forgotten about them. To his surprise this patch of trees was the only area on the entire farm without a scale infestation!
Four E’s Trees released several thousand Lindorus beetles the following season. According to Evans, “The first year results were amazing. We had entire fields of marketable size trees that we could not sell in the 2002 Christmas season due to excessive infestations of scale. These same fields were scale free, healthy and salable for the 2003 season. In addition to reducing the scale infestations to manageable levels, we spent $3,000 less on pesticides and countless fewer man-hours with the Lindorus beetles than the spray program the previous year.” Lindorus must be released annually when there are enough scale to feed them, which is usually late spring to early summer.
In 2005 Rincon-Vitova Insectaries, recognizing that Four E’s was able to provide valuable technical support to expand the successful use of one of the organisms it grows, offered a dealership to Four E’s Trees to sell Lindorus to the Christmas tree industry. Evans writes and speaks to Christmas tree associations and supplies Lindorus to over 50 growers in 14 states. Four E’s helps customers assess the scope of the problem, the type of scale, the number of beetles needed and timing of release, other cultural practices to produce pest resistant trees, how to distribute the beetles and monitor results. Beetles are shipped overnight to Four E’s customers for them to make the releases. For more information about Lindorus for scale in Christmas trees, write to Ron Evans <FourEsTrees @ aol.com> or call (217) 864-4704 and ask for Ron or Doug.
AntPro Professional
Published August 18, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: alternatives, ant, AntPro, ants, pesticide alternatives, RVI, toxic
Ant colonies often aid and protect pests like aphids, whitefly, thrips, and psyllids, because these insects leave behind a consumable nutritive substance called honeydew. Sometimes these invasive or pest-ants can be controlled through mechanical disruption of their trails or nests, with physical barriers, or with sticky resin products like Tanglefoot® or Stikem™. However, excessive and problematic ant populations in horticultural or institutional areas may require the additional use of ant baits and traps. That’s where Ken Kupfer, inventor of Ant Pro®, comes in.
An expert in Ant Control, Ken Kupfer brought an informative presentation and update to the RVI staff recently. Ken covered a wealth of information about ant control, ant behaviors, varying ant species, and current ant control success-stories and dilemmas within the industry of agriculture.
Updating the staff on farmers, growers, institutions, and households worldwide that are currently relying upon the documented, reliably successful, long-term ant control provided by AntPro, Ken displayed the AntPro model: a durable polypropylene liquid ant bait gravity dispenser with a screw-on platform specially designed to hold up to 20 oz of liquid ant bait, while preventing evaporation, flooding, dilution or tampering and protecting non-target insects
Ken presented pictures, maps and success stories from California vineyards to international hotels, where the use of the AntPro has reduced the need for toxic chemical control.
The RVI staff listened intently and followed-up on Ken with questions. We wanted to understand the product to be able to serve customers better. Ken’s statistics were fascinating; for instance, did you know that there are over 200 ant types in California or that only eight percent of the ants from a typical colony do the foraging work (that means we’re not even seeing 90% of an invading colony!).
Ken was certainly a pro—an AntPro—and an informative and welcome visitor to RVI. More about AntPro…
A Prophet-Able Insect Idea for Homeschool
Published June 29, 2009 Uncategorized 2 CommentsTags: homeschool, insects, Lacewing, mantis, projects, school
A friend of mine is home-schooling her daughters and asked if I had any ideas for their insect projects. Of course, I thought there must be something suitable right here at Rincon Vitova. So I asked Ron, here at the Bugfarm, what insects are most often used in a classroom situation? He immediately suggested the use of Lacewing larvae or Preying Mantis eggs—both of which are readily available at RVI.
I could see that both of those would be good to use, because, for one, they’re not microscopic in size, and, two, they’re almost mascot-like in the field of bio-control, i.e., both the Lacewing and Mantis adults are easily recognizable by children and adults, so much so that hosting these insects takes on the feel of raising a small pet. At least that’s how it felt for me, when I did a bit of a pre-test project: I chose to house a few Mantis eggs for a while at the RVI office before sending anything off to the home-schoolers.
Now, Mantises eat both beneficials and pests, so they are often sold more for educational value than strict bio-control. So, the Lacewing larvae might have made a better choice. Known as the Aphid Lion, Lacewing larvae are described as little alligators, consuming up to 400 aphids or 11,200 spider mites per individual as well as a variety of other pests, e.g., thrips, whitefly, and moths. So they would have been a good choice, especially for release into a garden. Still, I felt something calming about the thought of releasing the little insect that strikes a prophet’s pose, so I chose the Mantis.
I simply placed a couple of the Mantis eggs in a terrarium, and each week I eagerly anticipated the arrival of the little Mantes or Mantises. I anticipated about a month wait and put a little moisture and plant debris in the terrarium at week four. And, in just over a month, there they were. Each of the Mantis eggs contains 50 -100+ Mantes, so there wasn’t much time to leave the little brood of hatchlings in the terrarium following their emergence. I thought there would be some juvenile stage and an outer transformation into their classically esoteric adult pose, but, there, posed at the tip of my finger before releasing, was a young and fragile baby Mantis, a tiny image of their adult self. We released all of them onto some nearby rose bushes. A note, though, after the initial burst of young Mantises and their release, I’ve kept the eggs for awhile, and there are still a few small groups emerging well into the second month. So, this little insect project keeps on giving opportunities to watch for new emerging life and to care for and release insects over an extended period of time.
At the end of my pre-test project, I am convinced that the Mantises will supply a prophet-able project idea, suitable to both the home-schooled children and their garden. –end June 09 Duke
RVI and BBB All A-Buzz with Spring
Published May 1, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: BBB, garden, Rincon, spring
Too much going on! Between spring being sprung and populations of everything increasing, including unwelcome weedy plant species in the BBB garden, RVI is buzzing with a hive-like energy. Of course, maybe I see it as hive-like because Ron and I are moving a beehive onto the farm. Resident beneficial insect populations at RVI are also on the rise and so are customer phone calls and orders. Dozens of other things keep popping up at RVI, all needing attention: finishing the new catalog, finish up website renewal, building, improving and expanding! It really is amazing all the work that goes on behind the scenes and the brainpower constantly in use here at the RVI offices.
Our latest outside project is preparing some test plots where a variety of insect attracting flora blends will be planted, e.g., a low mix, a standard height mix, an interflora mix, as well as a little gopher stopper clover. All these mixes are available from Rincon-Vitova for habitat enhancement for beneficials.
The mixes will be planted adjacent to the BBB garden, so as Spring turns to early Summer there should be a veritable bouquet or beneficial insect banquet growing out there. We’ll be sure to post some pictures, too. As for the BBB garden, while it had been a little low-key for a while, it is starting to brighten up a bit with more color and blossoms again. The Milkweed, in particular, is starting to show some new blossoms as well and is putting on a few more leaves to its near bare stems and a few new shoots have popped up.
I’ve seen a couple of Monarchs here and there and a number of Painted Lady butterflies lately, so all the butterflies and beneficial insect populations are increasing as the BBB garden plants surge towards summer’s life. There’s a surge here both inside and out and RVI is a-buzzin!
Stop Garden and Landscape Wars
Published March 28, 2009 Ecology , Uncategorized 1 CommentTags: biome, Ecology, garden, landscape, owen dell, RVI, sustainable
Owen Dell, author of one of the latest in the …for Dummies series, signed his book Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies and presented a corresponding lecture Monday, March 23rd, 2009 at Patagonia, in Ventura, California.
Ron, and I (from RVI) and a friend, went to the lecture presented by the Ojai Valley Green Coalition and Owen Dell’s County Landscape and Design.
At the event, Owen invited the attending audience of fifty or so assumed professional landscapers and other interested parties to Wake-Up and become part of the country’s and the world’s “Great Wake-Up”. In part, he said, the Great Wake-Up includes the public’s growing awareness of disturbances to the earth’s ecology and a current surge of interest in local and global environments.
Now, then, is the perfect time, Owen projected, for lay gardeners and landscaping professionals to responsibly join in and realize that their local landscaping and gardening projects belong to a larger biome.
Explaining that landscaping projects should be responsibly governed by sustainable designs that are low impact, make use of native or otherwise apropos species, use local, recycled, biodegradable materials, and mirror the disposition of the local and surrounding ecology, Owen used a slide presentation to list a variety additional sustainable landscaping practices.
The author presented evidence that most landscaping and gardening practices currently consist largely of a warlike relationship between plants and people. Providing examples of state and local landscaping absurdities and the misuse of plants like Algerian Ivy, Trumpet Vine, and Box Junipers, the author disgustingly disapproved of these types of inane and inappropriate uses of species that will either obtrusively invade or outgrow areas or need constant and disfiguring trim-jobs. He explained that planting aggressive species that have “genetic destinies” inappropriate to what the individual really wants “the landscape to do” is all too common and ultimately ends in a waste of space, water, energy, and landscaping costs, i.e., ending in a costly war between you and what otherwise should be a an inviting, calming, restorative and regenerative space.
STOP THE WAR! This anti-landscape-war declaration encapsulated the essence of the author’s message: the natural surrounding environment should be used a palette or as an example. He pointed to its lack of need for subsidization or warlike maintenance and to the fact that everything in a typical section of our local natural surroundings (plants, animals, insects, topography, water, temperatures, detritus, and microbes) has a relationship of usefulness, where there is little to no effluent or waste.
His presentation left obvious questions to those in attendance: Does your landscaping or gardening currently reflect the same naturally wise and economical structure and sustainability that your surrounding natural areas present? And, are you planting, planning, or designing with appropriate species and use of space considering both your local and extended environs as well as your own needs?
Owen suggested responsible and creative landscaping utilizing “aesthetics after function”, but he promised you can get both with a little WAKE-UP, some informed observation, contemplation, and a dedication to Stopping Landscape Wars! Above all he gave all of us the directive to “Do something with this information”.
All the other direction you may need consists in knowing the natural dictates of your local biome, a change in perspective, some collaboration with friends, neighbors, and professionals, and, of course, a look through Owen’s new book. -end- March 09 Duke
BBB Seasonal Seesaw
Published March 6, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a CommentTags: BBB, butterflies, butterfly, garden, milkweed
BBB Garden—Seasonal Seesaw Urgency
It’s just past February—Winter in the nation’s southwest coastal zone. The BBB garden has been dry for a while now and blossoming less. There are bare stems and browning leaves here and there. No snow, ice, or hail like the rest of the nation, the BBB garden has been sitting through days and weeks of clear blue skies and dry winds.
Drought tolerant, beneficial insect attracting plants holding to gray, dry and dusty soil, the BBB garden appears to be holding its breath right now and waiting for the invigoration of Spring.
At last, a steady light rain has come—cool, cleansing, refreshing rain that the BBB garden soil drinks greedily into its top layer.
Underneath the moistened, black, top-layer of moist soil, the dryness of Southern California’s drought continues its hold— although we’re getting a couple of inches of rain in February, we’ll only be up to about 70-80% normal rainfall for this area.
So there’s a kind of a seasonal seesaw effect going on in the BBB garden. You can see and sense winter’s dormancy and spring’s urgency all at the same time.
Now, with the rain, the ground is black and wet but still gray and dry at the same time in different places and depths. Some of the plants are nearly bare of leaves, while others are holding on to a few bright flowers. The milkweed still looks pretty bare—just like the monarchs left it in my last post Greek Monarchs.
A little bit barren with just a bit of bloom—the BBB garden is hanging in there, and I’m sure some beneficials are keeping an eye on it just like we are—waiting on the urgency of spring.
Hi Everyone,
We’re in the process of revamping our main website (rinconvitova.com), finishing our most recent Catalog of Beneficials, and getting ready for 2009 busy season! Once we have all this together (whew) we’ll start getting some more posts up. We have a lot of exciting ideas to share… Thanks so much for checking us our and we look forwards to providing more biocontrol content asap!
The Bugfarm
