Category Archives: News
Another fall pest for Texas homes?
The brown marmorated stink bug is the latest in a string of unwelcome foreign pests that want to share our homes during the winter months. A couple of weeks ago I posted a description of the hackberry nipplegall maker, which is a native insect pest that enters homes in the fall. The brown marmorated stink bug (let’s call it BMSB) is from Asia and has been settling into its new home in the eastern U.S. since it was first noticed in Pennsylvania in 1998. It was spotted in south… Read More →
Emerald ash borer discovered in Kansas
As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, Texas has been conducting a survey for the past several years to look for the first signs of the highly destructive emerald ash borer. Although we have beetle samples from this summer currently being evaluated by USDA/APHIS, we have so far seen no sign of the beetle in Texas. The folks in Kansas, however, have not been so fortunate. The Kansas Department of Agriculture, working with the USDA, has just reported the first known case of EAB in the Kansas City,… Read More →
New cockroach publication
“So what did you do at work today dear?” “I helped finish a new factsheet on cockroaches.” OK, so dinner banter with an Extension entomologist spouse often leaves much to be desired. And us bug people are never going to get rich or earn wide praise for our publications. But I like to think that people benefit from products like the new factsheet on Cockroach Biology and Management regardless of how unappealing the subject. Extension publication E-359 is the first major revision of the Texas cockroach factsheet in… Read More →
West Nile Virus: Sooner than Later
The tiny buzz bombers are back. Mosquitoes are in full swing in Texas and are bringing the West Nile Virus with them. One of the first signs of the virus this year occurred in Plano, Texas (zip code 75074, northeast of the cross-section of SH-75 and President George Bush Turnpike). According to Scott Andrews of the City of Plano Environmental Health Department, “The confirmation came last Monday (June 19th) from samples we trapped and sent to the State Health Department. We sprayed the area for mosquitoes last Friday night… Read More →
H.S. Stevens longtime Dallas garden writer
My first year in Extension someone told me about this H.S. Stevens fellow, a super-savvy gardener who used a hypodermic syringe to treat his squash vines with Bt (a natural control agent that controls squash vine borer and other caterpillars), and knew everything there was to know about gardening in the Dallas area. When I finally met H.S., he was pretty much everything I expected. Gravelly voiced, opinionated and sincerely enthusiastic about his job bringing gardening to kids through his Texas Agricultural Extension Service job. H.S. left Extension… Read More →
Putting out the Unwelcome Mat for borers
Since early spring Dr. Charlie Helpert has tirelessly driven the country roads of north Texas, and knocking on doors in the area, in a effort to make Texas trees safer from insect attack. The enemy is the emerald ash borer, and the weapon is an early detection network of traps and volunteers trained to spot this foreign invader that threatens ash trees throughout the eastern U.S. I wrote about this project last year and so far the news has been good. No ash borer yet in Texas. But… Read More →
Invasive crazy ant in Austin area
The tiny crazy ant, known either as the Rasberry crazy ant or the Carribbean crazy ant, is now in the Austin area. See the story from the Austin American Statesmen, for more information. I won’t say much about this except to note that this is thought to be a mostly tropical ant, and the general consensus is that it won’t do as well where winters are cold and humidity is low. Whether it will turn out to be a serious problem in relatively dry Austin, or whether it… Read More →
Butterflies and moths galore
In case you haven’t been paying attention, this spring has been great for butterfly and moth watchers in Texas. A few weeks ago I noted the abundance of armyworm moths, and last week I had several questions about all the butterflies on the wing. This week county extension agents in west Texas reported large numbers of the migratory army cutworm in and around towns. The picture accompanying this article was sent by Rich and Nikki Lefebvre, Master Naturalists in Plano. It shows an impressive number of red admiral… Read More →
