Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a way to protect buildings, farms and other places from pests while minimizing pesticide use and treatment costs. As our world becomes more global, the number of invasive species in Florida will continue to ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
If you have ever seen what looks like clumps of dirt ascending your walls, you are actually seeing an insect. The “dirt” is actually a case that surrounds a household casebearer caterpillar (Figure 1), which is the larval stage of a Tineid ... READ MORE
Category: Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension, Work & Life
Though it sounds like the new craze in carbonated beverages, tropical soda apple is not refreshing or fun. A prickly shrub from the nightshade family, tropical soda apple is known scientifically as Solanum viarum. It’s native to South America, ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
The word arbovirus is an example of a portmanteau, a word that was created by mashing together portions of other words. It’s a noun that means “arthropod-borne virus,” but takes less time to say. The word was created by taking “ar” ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
When you have an infestation of bed bugs (Figure 1), bleach should not be used as a control method. Bleach can be harmful to people if not used carefully, and it will not work effectively to completely eradicate bed bugs from your ... READ MORE
Category: Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension, Work & Life
The twospotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, is a total glutton. Infamous for eating just about everything – more than 200 species of ornamental, vegetable and fruit crops – the twospotted spider mite is the most economically important ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
Entomopathogenic is a long adjective that simply means, “capable of causing disease in insects.” Most commonly, the term refers to nematodes, fungi or bacteria that cause potentially fatal diseases in insects. Entomopathogenic organisms ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease
Those little, squirming things in your birdbath are container-breeding mosquitoes (Figure 1). These mosquitoes are in their larval stage. Adult container-breeding mosquitoes lay eggs wherever water collects, which can be natural structures—like ... READ MORE
Category: Florida-Friendly Landscaping, Home Landscapes, Natural Resources, Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension
For the past month, I have asked our staff to bring me whatever bugs they might find on our 475-acre farm. This is a very busy time for our faculty and staff, so I only received a few specimens so far, but they are beauties. There's nothing ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Crops, Events, Farm Management, Pests & Disease, Pests & Disease, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Extension, Wildlife
In England they have been called ladybirds for over 600 years, but in the United States we call them ladybugs. The name is a misnomer, though – these insects are not bugs at all, but are actually beetles (and they are not all ladies.) They ... READ MORE
Category: Agriculture, Pests & Disease