Get ‘Good Garden Bugs’ here, have the author sign it

Good Garden Bugs 2CFAES scientist Mary Gardiner, author of the new book Good Garden Bugs: Everything You Need to Know About Beneficial Predatory Insects, will be one of the nearly 100 Ohio authors and illustrators at this year’s Buckeye Book Fair. The 28th annual event is Saturday, Nov. 7, in Fisher Auditorium at OARDC in Wooster. You can meet her, buy her book and have her sign it if you’d like. Learn more on p. 7 here. Beneficial predatory insects, such as lacewings and mantises, can help you keep a healthy garden with fewer chemicals and less work. Read a Columbus Dispatch story about her book here. OARDC is CFAES’s research arm.

Pitching a stink (bug)

This has to do with sustainability in the sense of sustaining a stink bug- and stink-free household. Which is nice. CFAES’s Ohioline website has a helpful free fact sheet about brown marmorated stink bugs, where they come from, what they do and how to control them. You can download it here. And our entomology friends at Virginia Tech have a short, clear video (only 24 seconds) showing how to build your own research-tested, effective, inexpensive stink bug trap that you can watch above or here. Brown marmorated stink bugs move into homes in fall, looking for a place to spend winter. They’re a non-native invasive species in the U.S. and are a pest, too, of fruit and vegetables.

How weeds develop herbicide resistance, and what we can do about it

Todd Gaines talks about his research on managing weeds and his work with students and farmers in a video published last summer by Colorado State. Gaines speaks on Wednesday, Feb. 4, in the spring seminar series of CFAES’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science.

Sustainable food production and glyphosate resistance: Feb. 4

Colorado State scientist Todd Gaines presents “Sustainable Production Systems: Implications of Glyphosate Resistance” from 11:30 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 4, in 244 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus and by video link to 121 Fisher Auditorium at CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., in Wooster. Glyphosate is a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide. Gaine studies sustainable weed management and its role in sustainable food production. He speaks as part of the spring seminar series of CFAES’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science. Free. Information: barker.169@osu.edu. Related post.

2 good reads on growing hops

Want to keep learning about hops? For starters, try CFAES’s Hops in Ohio: Beneficial Arthropods fact sheet (sustainable ways to manage pests) and Michigan State University Extension’s Sustainable Hop Production in the Great Lakes Region (PDF). (Also see our previous post.)

Feb. 13: ‘Building an Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Pest Management’

CFAES’s Parwinder Grewal will present “Moving Beyond IPM (Integrated Pest Management): Building an Ecosystem Approach to Sustainable Pest Management” from 3:30-4:30 p.m. on Feb. 13. Free. 121 Fisher Auditorium, 1680 Madison Ave., on OARDC’s Wooster campus with a video link to 244 Kottman Hall, 2021 Coffey Road, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus. Grewal is a professor and Distinguished Scholar in the Department of Entomology. He leads OARDC’s Urban Landscape Ecology Program and Center for Urban Environment and Economic Development.

New, sustainable ways to manage pests?

CFAES scientists are in the middle of a multi-year project to develop sustainable, ecological ways to manage pests, and not just on farms and in gardens but in lawns, homes, schools, and other places. Entomologist Joe Kovach: “We want to find new and improved ways to help people manage their pests in a more environmentally sound manner. … We’re trying to benefit as many people as possible, from farmers to consumers to business people.” Read more …