Podcasts about mealybug

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 3, 2024 50:03

If you are dealing with vine mealybug in your vineyard, you are not alone. Kent Daane, Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California Berkley studies different types of mealybug populations across the globe. Kent covers organic and conventional strategies, ways to increase the presence of generalist and specialist natural predators, and the importance of establishing refugia for beneficials. His latest work focuses on area-wide management tactics. Looking to the European Grapevine Moth eradication program as an example, Kent sees an opportunity to decrease vine mealybug populations through neighborhood driven monitoring, trapping, coordinated sprays, and mating disruption. Resources: 119: Vine Mealybug 101: Species Identification, Lifecycle, and Scouting to Create an IPM Program 130: The Biological Control of Vine Mealybug Using Mealybug Destroyers and Anagyrus Wasps Biology and management of mealybugs in vineyards Ecology and management of grapevine leafroll disease Impacts of Argentine ants on mealybugs and their natural enemies in California's coastal vineyards Insecticides for a mealybug and a carpenter moth on vine trunks, 2023 In-season drip and foliar insecticides for a mealybug in grapes, 2023 In-Season Drip and Foliar Insecticides for a Mealybug in Grapes, 2021 Kent Daane Mealybug transmission of grapevine leafroll viruses: an analysis of virus–vector specificity Sustainable Control tools for Vine Mealybug UCCE Napa Viticulture Extension Leaf Hopper site Vineyard managers and researchers seek sustainable solutions for mealybugs, a changing pest complex Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org. Transcript [00:00:00] Craig Macmillan: Welcome to Sustainable Wine Growing with Vineyard Team. Our guest today is Kent Daane. He is a Cooperative Extension Specialist with the University of California, Berkeley, and he works primarily out of the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center. And today we're going to talk about a number of topics. Thanks for being on the podcast, Kent. [00:00:17] Kent Daane: Craig, thanks. I'm happy to be here. [00:00:20] Craig Macmillan: Let's dive in on one pest that everybody's interested in, continuing to be interested in, and you may have some new insights or newer insights on this. Let's start with mealybug management. Kind of what's the state of the art in that topic right now? [00:00:33] Kent Daane: Yeah, that's been the number one question I've been getting for many, many years now. It is an invasive pest. We know it came in, probably being brought in by a grower down in Coachella Valley. It has since spread into the San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast area where you are, Napa Sonoma, and it's been found now in Oregon. Just like Napa, Oregon has attempted an eradication program. And probably just like Napa, most likely it's not going to work. It's a very, very difficult insect to kill 100%. I mean, I can come up with all kinds of different programs, soft programs, hard programs, expensive programs, inexpensive programs, where I can suppress that insect pest. It's very difficult to remove it from a vineyard. And that becomes important when you think about the kinds of damage we're worried about in Central Coast wine grapes. Pretty much anywhere where they're looking at grape quality. But especially in the cooler regions. So, this insect, this mealybug, is one of many mealybug species. that is a vector of grape leaf roll associated viruses. And this is the primary reason it grows to such high pest status. So for the most part, the growers can knock its levels down far enough that it's not in the grape clusters or it's rarely found in the grape clusters. That's more of an issue for table grape growers. It's a cosmetic pest. When you look at some of the Regions in the San Joaquin Valley where they're growing a lot of table grapes Kern, Tulare, Kings, Fresno, counties, there's enough heat accumulation and these grapes are harvested early enough in the season that they can still build up their Brix. They can still get a very good grape to market. Even when there's some vinely bug on the vine, they just don't tend to be as impacted by this leaf roll pathogen as our wine grapes. When you get into regions like San Luis Obispo, Napa, Monterey, Oregon, where they really are trying to hold those grapes on the vine for a longer period of time, trying to build up the bricks levels. That's where this. pathogen causes so much damage. [00:03:06] Craig Macmillan: most of our growers are already going to be familiar with this, but what kind of damage does the vine mealybug cause? It's so, so terrible. [00:03:12] Kent Daane: So the vine mealybug, besides being a vector of this pathogen, is also a direct pest of the grapevine. It can feed on the roots, on the trunk, on the leaves, and in the fruit. When this first hit California, we were working on it primarily as a San Joaquin Valley pest. growers that were putting on, you know, the products of the day dimethylate, lanate. If they were missing , the, target window where that pest was exposed, we would see thousands and thousands of mealybugs, not just per vine, but sometimes a thousand millibugs per leaf. It was causing defoliation. It was causing the berries to raisin on the vine. In South Africa, populations were getting so heavy. It was killing the vines themselves. How many people out there 20, 30 years ago were spraying so many neonics as we're saying today? We weren't doing that. now really, we were spraying for leaf hoppers as our number one pests followed by mites in case there was a flare up. It changed what we were doing in terms of pest management. In fact there's a group of us working internationally. Not just on the vine mealybug, but other mealybug species, because we've seen vine mealybug, grape mealybug, citrus mealybug, all becoming more problematic over the last decade. And we're, asking that question, why? What has gone on? And one of the thoughts we've got, not yet shown, but one idea is that we just sprayed so many of these, these newer chemicals that the mealybugs are developing resistance, The natural enemies are not, and we're seeing an escape of some of these mealybug species in now a, to them, a pesticide lessened environment. [00:05:10] Craig Macmillan: speaking of biological control, so this is an invasive pest, came from outside the U. S. That's the kinda the classical biological control problem. the pest comes, but its natural enemies don't come with it. there are some natural enemies of vine mealybug in the United States. [00:05:24] Kent Daane: Yes, they are, and I don't want to go too deep in the weeds on this, but this is new, very exciting to me. I did an importation program, that's a classic biocontrol program, where we go to the pests, origin, we look for natural enemies and we bring those back to the United States. Growers can't do that. It's got to go into quarantine. We have to study those natural enemies. Sometimes for years to make sure that they're not going to do any harm. The classic example people think about is I've got a problem with rats. And so I bring in a weasel, the weasel kills all the rats, and then starts going after my chickens. We don't do that anymore. Classic biocontrol is now much more modern. We've got all kinds of protective barriers against making a mistake. In fact, I think that we've gone a little bit too far. I think we're overly cautious. Bringing this back to the Vine melaybug, I imported material from Europe, from Israel, from Egypt, and from South Africa. We were finding mostly the same species in most of these different regions. The two most important species at that time were called Anagyrus pseudococci, which is The well known parasitoid that you can purchase from insectaries. The other one is Coxydoxinoides peregrinus, no common name on these insects. Both are established in California. When I did this work, we noticed a difference between the anagyrus near species Pseudococci that we were getting in Sicily and Spain with the material that we were getting that had already been established from Israel and what we're finding in northern Italy. Working with a taxonomist, Sergei Trapitsin he found some significant differences between these. And later on after both were imported in the United States determined that these were two species, one still Anagyrus pseudocoxi and one Anagyrus vladimiri. So sometimes you'll see insectaries selling Anagyrus vladimiri and you think, Oh, I want that. That's different. It is different, but both are established in California. We're actually going to do a followup study. now in collaboration with this international group to find out what we've got in California. I suspect we've got both. Now, why is this exciting? Because at the time we were doing this work, we felt like the parasites were different, and we felt that these different groups that we were importing, maybe one had co evolved with the citrus mealybug, And the other with the vine mealybug. And we had already done some work with the vine mealybug, molecular work, looking at its relationship to each other around the world. and their names are, scientific names would be citrus mealybug, planococcus citri. Vine mealybug, we knew as planococcus ficus, which means, Ficus tree, fig tree. And we were showing that this group was, they had an outlier and ours was the outlier. And then working with this international group, they said, look, back in the fifties, there was a planococcus vitis. And I think what you've got, what we've got on vines, is the vine mealybug. But not in Iran and Iraq at that time. And, and maybe in that Mediterranean region Israel, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey the Mesopotamian region, I think is what it is. Maybe there are some parasites there that we didn't have. Certainly, my colleague in Egypt and more parasites than we were finding in Europe. We just weren't able to get them all to establish in colony in quarantine. So it opens up the window that, that maybe there's something still out there. At this point in time, I say in all the countries where vine mealybug is reported as a problem, that's most of Europe Mexico, South America South Africa. We have the best of those parasites. We just want to delve deeper into what are we seeing in Turkey? How does that match up with what we know is in Egypt? And I do have colleagues in Iran. It's just harder for me to go there. [00:10:09] Craig Macmillan: right, of course. so this makes me think, is it possible that we have mixed populations of these mealybugs in California on the same plant, so it's different areas? [00:10:17] Kent Daane: So that's the project we're working on with this international group. What we decided to do in a three part approach is to first find out what everyone's got. The assumption is that in South America, In the United States, North America, we have got single invasion events. Our guess is that it arrived in the U S in Coachella and Mexico at the same time. We're pretty sure that the population they have in Peru is from California Yeah, they were bringing nursery wood in and lo and behold, they found vine mealybug. We went down to look at a nomatode problem to be honest with some UC California researchers. And we found that they had some mite problems at the same mites that we've got in North American California. So they were probably not being very cautious in what they were importing. So we're assuming that South America's got this California group which came from Israel. We know Israel and Egypt have something very similar, but it's different than most of Europe. South Africa is similar to Portugal and Spain, which makes sense with the trade routes that were going on in the 1960s. What we're guessing is that The European groups, there probably are, there's reported failures of vine mealybug mating disruption in some European areas. And we think that probably is this other mealybug that is probably in Turkey. So it's all very exciting to me, kind of delving deeper into the weeds on this. But the first part of this international group, again, a great group of people, Europe, South America our first part is what do we all have? Our second part is what we're doing a grower survey that we actually sent to the vineyard team and they spread out to some growers as well. What are, what are growers using to control the mealybug? Because maybe with some of the, we find out what it is and maybe growers are working harder to control our vine mealybug than say that the fig millebug which appears to be what they've got in most of Europe. Remember when I started the foreign exploration when I was in Spain growers would tell me yeah we've got the vine millebug but it really is not much of a pest. Citrus millebug on vines is more of a pest. Well they probably have that fig mealybug but [00:13:01] Craig Macmillan: Ah, [00:13:01] Kent Daane: You know, taxonomically, it looked to us like the vine mealybug.And I hope I'm not throwing all these things out and it's confusing. So, second part, that is, the survey. What do you have and what are you using to control it? And if it matches up that, yeah, what we've got is the one that's more difficult, that fills in a lot of boxes. Third and fourth part are now looking at the natural controls. What parasites are you getting coming off of this? What parasites are in your region? And how do they respond to the pheromones that we know are out there? So if they're not, if they're responding to both citrus and vine, maybe that's an indication that it's this other group. If they're not responding at all, or weakly, yeah, we've, we've got three or more distinct species. And we can't tell them apart, but maybe the parasites can. [00:13:56] Craig Macmillan: this is kind of a practical question. hoW do you monitor parasitic wasps? They're tiny. They live in refugia. They then come out and plant their eggs in their host. that seems like a really hard thing to do. [00:14:10] Kent Daane: That's an absolute fantastic question. So let's look at that most common parasite, Antigyrus Pseudococci slash Vladimiri. So what we found over the years is that it does a great job on mealybugs that are exposed in the fruit, on the leaves, on the cane. By the end of the season, if you're not putting on a lot of contact chemicals, you're getting greater than 40 percent parasitism. Very easy to see, [00:14:43] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:14:43] Kent Daane: doesn't do very well against the mealybugs under the bark, because it's got this searching behavior where it's got to get on top of the mealybug, determine how big it is, do I want to put a an egg that's not fertilized in that, which would be a male, and they need smaller mealybugs for that. Do I want to put an egg which is fertilized? In that, that will become a female parasite that needs larger host. [00:15:09] Craig Macmillan: the same insect, the same parasite has the ability to do either. [00:15:13] Kent Daane: Yes. [00:15:15] Craig Macmillan: Wow. [00:15:15] Kent Daane: again, this is really a neat subject and I hope I don't bore the audience too much. But, a lot of these parasites that become important for mealybugs they have this little sac, so you've got your oviduct going to your ovarioles, in the female. And right around the oviduct area, before it splits into the two ovarioles, you've got this little sac called the spermatheca. unlike humans, where the sperm goes in and Seeks out the eggs and fertilizes it. The sperm go in and the female parasite stores them in the spermatheca. And then as the eggs are mature and ready to go down, oviduct and get ready to be oviposited into the mealybug, the female decides to fertilize the egg or not fertilize it. And if it's fertilized, it becomes a female. If it's not fertilized, it becomes a male. And that allows her to determine what the host size is, because the females are bigger than the males. And so she will walk up and down. and size that mealybug and say that this, this mealybug is a good enough size that this is worthy for me to put a fertilized egg in and that will become a female. Or a second in store mealybug, she'll say, this really isn't that good of a mealybug host. So I'm going to put An unfertilized egg, and that will become a male. And that was, going back to this Anagyrus Vladimiri versus Pseudococci, that was the most important difference that we found in this Sicilian and Spanish group of Anagyrus, was that they would oviposit and put females in smaller hosts than the male. earlier parasite which probably evolved on the citrus mealybug. So going back to this question because I do go off on different tangents. How do you sample for these things? So it's really easy to find a mummified mealybug on a leaf. But remember what we're doing. We're spraying now a lot of Movento and we're spraying a lot of the Neonics regardless of its Admire, Platinum, or generic derivative. They're all good materials. and maybe you're putting on an IGR like a plot, again, all good materials, Assail, all good materials. What they tend to do is work really good against the mealy bug, which is exposed on the leaves. Our systemic materials are really good at going out to the leaves. Our contact materials, our IGRs, the neonics, that are contacts kill the mealybug that's exposed. All of these materials do less of a good job with the mealybug underneath the bark. we're not getting a true indication of what these parasites can do because we're killing the host that's the best location for them to attack. So that means to really find out what's going on, you got to strip bark oftentimes. So now you're looking at parasitism in that region of the vine that the parasite doesn't like to be. Now, if we add to this, this other good parasite, which is the coccidoxoenoides peregrinus, we really liked to bring this in because it attacks the very, very small stages of the mealybug, the first and the second instar. It's sometimes a small third, but really it's focused on the second instar. [00:19:05] Craig Macmillan: Got it. [00:19:06] Kent Daane: It's in California. You can find it, but it's really hard to find out what impact it's got because it will parasitize the mealybug and will cause the parasitized mealybug to die. to feel sick and to seek out some area for protection because the anagyrus if you see that mealybug parasitized on the leaf causes that mealybug to kind of glue itself down to the leaf You have to flip that thing to get it off the leaf. A mummy is a dead mealybug which sticks to the leaf. The coccydox anoides causes the mealybug to find a place of protection because it doesn't stick it to the leaf. So it often times goes to the trunk, or goes to the stem, and eventually falls off the vine, and will pupate down into the ground. And so to sample for that one, you have to collect them as first or second instars live, bring them back to the insectary, and rear them out to the parasite, which is just really a lot of work hard to do. so these things are far more difficult to do. Sample four, then going out and counting, you know, aphid parasites, which are just out there as little brown mummified aphids. [00:20:29] Craig Macmillan: it sounds like this would play a role in my timing of my insecticide applications, whether it's Spirotetramat or Neonic or One of the programs that I think is common is to have spirotetramat on top and have a myothiamethoxam soil applied. Does that sound right? [00:20:47] Kent Daane: Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, they're both good products and they're doing what they're supposed to do. they're killing the mealybug. And when the timing is right, they're getting out there before the mealybug. So as the mealybug is going out towards the leaves. You know, they're probably doing a better job than the parasite will do on its own. Now, if you are an organic grower and you can't use those materials, then timing does become a little bit more critical because you're putting on, oftentimes, organic materials every 10 to 14 days because they've got a shorter residual. So on those you may want to, you know, work your timing around to avoid to give it a window of opportunity some of these natural enemies. There you're looking on the leaf, you're looking for mummified mealybugs. You know, are, do I have some of these good natural enemies in the field? You're looking for the mealybug destroyer, or one of the other beetles. Green lancelings are also doing a pretty good job. So you're monitoring those. And maybe you're deciding, I've got a lot of good activity maybe I should wait to put on pyganic or one of the other materials, which is broad spectrum give the other parasites a chance, a cycle, to see what their impact's going to be on that millibug population. Or maybe you're going to leave every fifth row unsprayed to let the parasites come back in and then hit that row later. So you've got a chance for those natural enemies to move the just sprayed vines. [00:22:22] Craig Macmillan: That was going to be my next question is what is the refugee situation for these parasites? Do they come into the vineyard, do their thing and then leave? Do they come in when there is host and then they hang out in the vineyard for the rest of the season? Do we know? I'm just thinking about ways that I can preserve, conserve those parasites as much as possible so that they're there when I need them. [00:22:45] Kent Daane: That's a great question, Craig. And let's break this apart into two different areas. Let's talk about First, the generalist predators that I just mentioned, the green lacewings, a good mealybug predator against the smaller mealybug stages. A lot of the things we do to enhance natural enemies will enhance generalist predators. So that's where your cover crops come in. That's where your pollen and nectar come in. You'll increase generalist predators. Ladybird beetles, green lacewings, minute pyre bugs, those can all attack and kill. That same group of cover cropping that brings in the gentleness predator may have little impact on the specialized parasitoids. Things like the anagyrus and the coccidocsinoides, what they want is the mealybugs. And not all mealybugs will do. They really want the mealybugs that are better hosts for them. So, they tend to get everything they need out of that pest population. They can host feed. They can stick their ovipositor into a mealybug, turn around and feed on some of that exudate, some of what's being bled. The mealybug creates honeydew. That honeydew, instead of trying to plant a cover crop for honeydew, that honeydew serves as a food to increase the longevity of those parasitoids. And as the mealybug density goes down, the parasite numbers should go down as well. Now there are different kinds of food sprays that we hope to look at that oftentimes do help increase both generalists and perhaps specialist natural enemies. [00:24:46] Craig Macmillan: Hm. [00:24:46] Kent Daane: The number one thing you do to to enhance beneficial insect numbers is to watch the broad spectrum insecticide sprays or to time them where you're not spraying, you know, all 100 acres at the same time, but you're leaving a refugia so they can move back in. [00:25:08] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. So, I might be looking at something and saying, okay, I am going to have to take some action here. I'm hitting an action threshold but not pull the trigger on the whole thing. leave one area for a little bit, and then can you come back and treat that later, so that you're preserving some of these folks, and then they can come back on the other side, and find a balance between the chemical and the biological. Mm [00:25:31] Kent Daane: Right. A balance, a delay might just be 10 days, might be 20 days. We don't want to miss our spray window, but remember, Most of the natural enemies are winged as adults, whereas the female mealybug is never winged. Fairly slow, fairly thestle. So that allows for those beneficials to come back in. And if you're a large grower this just happens over over the course because you can't spray 100 acres in a day. [00:26:07] Craig Macmillan: Right. Right. Fascinating. Are growers starting to adopt, in your experience with the folks that you work with, are growers starting to adopt these kinds of timings and techniques and methods? [00:26:19] Kent Daane: I think growers are constantly adopting, improving, changing one of the common misconceptions when I talk to students or people who just don't don't know how to farm or farmers is that farmers really don't want to spray. Spraying costs money. it is an added expenditure, added time, added worry. So they'd much rather, you know, go back 50 years when we didn't have all these invasive insects from Vine mealybug to Virginia Creeper growers are always seeking out how to improve the insecticide materials they've got, how to reduce the insecticide applications they have to make. And that does include natural enemies, mating disruption. What it comes down to is just costs. So oftentimes there's a trade off. If you're going to use mating disruption, you may not be doing three applications of an insecticide for vine mealybug. Maybe it's one insecticide plus vine mealybug mating disruption. If you're organic and you're releasing beneficial insects and spraying every other week. Maybe you don't have the cost for mating disruption. So these are all decisions that individual growers have to make. Obviously we've got some growers in some regions can spend 300 per acre for mealybug control. Other growers simply cannot do that because of the value of, their product at the very end. [00:28:03] Craig Macmillan: Right. This is kind of a natural lead in to something I wanted to touch on, and that is the Virginia Creeper leafhopper that's found on the North Coast. That also an invasive, correct? Came in from outside. [00:28:15] Kent Daane: It is invasive to some extent. It is not invasive like the vine mealybug is from. The Mediterranean region Virginia creeper most likely is, is North American. But yes, it was never really a California leafhopper pest. It was, no England, Canada. Pest that then went into Washington, then went into Oregon, that then came into California. interestingly, the, leafhopper that I worked on for so many years the variegated grape leafhopper probably North American, probably had a different avenue, probably came up from the south, from Mexico, Texas, to Arizona, to California. So Some of our invasives are close relatives. [00:29:07] Craig Macmillan: Interesting. what's the difference in damage that's caused by the Virginia creep leaf hopper and the the variegated leaf hopper. [00:29:17] Kent Daane: So they're, they're very similar. I think that the grape leafhopper is the one we've been dealing with for the longest time and has been relatively mild compared to the other two. The variegated grape leafhopper When it first came into the San Joaquin Valley, it could defoliate vines. It had three to four generations per year. [00:29:42] Craig Macmillan: Oh, wow. [00:29:43] Kent Daane: It seemed to be much more damaging than the grape leafhopper. Virginia creeper leafhopper, now in northern California, making its way south. So it's gotten to the middle of the state. It's in Napa, Sonoma, Sacramento. I have not seen it. Heard it reported in the Fresno area. Oh, it has been reported in Fresno. But I'm not saying it causes much damage here. We really don't get many leaf hopper reports for damage here, except for organic growers. And that's because all the sprays for vine mealybug. Most of those vine mealybug sprays are very good against the leaf hoppers. Where I have seen it as a pest. It's been mostly in wine grapes. Mostly in the cooler regions of the state. Mostly controlled by conventional insecticides. There are programs organic materials registered for Virginia creeper that I think have done a fairly good job. But it, it does get out of hand. And I think for all these leaf hoppers with organic materials, what happens is that The organic products tend to not work well , against the leaf operant in the egg stage or the leaf operant in the adult stage. So timing is very important. You want to get those materials on. when egg hatch is nearly complete and when you've got mostly first and second instars out there. That's because most of our organic products tend to impact these pests by either being a desiccant like the soaps that dry it out or a suffocant like the oils that clog the spiracles. And so the the, adults just fly away from that tractor rig as it's coming down. The eggs are protected inside the leaf itself, in their little clusters for the Virginia Creeper. And the larger insects can, they're just more mobile. So it's hard to kill them. So timing becomes relatively critical with these insects. I've not worked directly with Virginia creeper other than hosting Houston Wilson did his graduate work in my lab and really focused on, on the parasites of this insect. Lucia Varela, now retired, did focus on looking at the different insecticides and she's got a nice summary article which is on Monica Cooper's website. It talks about the different insecticides, U C cooperative extension Napa County. And she's got a website that goes into materials for organic growers for Virginia creeper leaf hopper. I think that's where I saw. that information posted. And what Houston did was he just looked at and tried to improve the Enneagrus. So we get those two confused. The Lilybug parasite is Anagyrus. The Leafhopper parasite is Enneagrus. The two names sound pretty similar, but one is an inserted family and one is a Mimerit. Or a fairy fly, fairy winged fly. They're some of the smallest insects known. So, [00:33:03] Craig Macmillan: Wow. So, we are continuing to look at these new parasites, how they're performing, we're learning a lot more about them, and we're learning a lot more about timing of different kinds of sprays around their life cycle. [00:33:17] Kent Daane: Yeah, what Houston was trying to do was to understand why parasitism against the Virginia creeper leafhopper was against all the leafhoppers. Why parasitism was relatively low. So I was working with Danny Gonzales and Sergei Tripitsin, And just mentioning to the taxonomist, Sergei, that it seemed like there were differences amongst these Enneagris samples that we were releasing. And I had happened to save all of the material that had died. So I sent that to Sergei, and Sergei looked at these things closely and then said, look, we've got a complex of parasites. And he named Enneagris erythronureae. After the species that was most commonly attacking variegated grape leafhopper, which is Erythronere variabilis. There was another one, and he called a Negris tryptocova, which was named after his wife's father's family and he said that was the better looking one of the group. And there was one that just didn't do that much. And he named that after me, a Negris Dana. And so that one we thought was the one attacking the western grape leaf hopper most commonly. And it was being found more commonly in the riparian zone. So that's 20 years ago, fast forward to our new invasive leaf hopper, the Virginia creeper leaf hopper, which is again coming down from Canada to Washington to Oregon to California. Well, it ends up that the Enneagris deni is very important attacking that leaf hopper. So Houston was working out the relationship of these three parasites against these three leaf hoppers and trying to understand if he could manipulate their numbers to improve biocontrol. He looked at hedgerows, he looked at augmentative releases or inoculative releases, and we're still curious to see if that can't be improved even. [00:35:30] Craig Macmillan: That's fantastic. Another topic that I wanted to touch on, because it's a really cool idea, and I think we'll have applications across a lot of things eventually, and that is area wide pest management strategies. And I know that you've done a lot of work in this area from the beginning, really, of kind of the concept. What is an area wide pest management strategy? Management program. What does it look like? What can it what is its goal? How does it operate? What kind of success we've seen so far? [00:35:59] Kent Daane: Yeah, that's a fantastic question. It's a topic I'm really excited about and let's think about it when we think about the European grapevine model. that was another invasive insect, It was found in California, it was found in Chile around the same time. So you've got this invasive insect, and the state of California deemed this important enough to have an eradication program. [00:36:22] Craig Macmillan: Oh and just real quick. What kind of damage does grapevine moth do? [00:36:26] Kent Daane: So the European Greenvine Moth it'll feed on the vine, but it gets in the fruit clusters. think of the omnivorous leaf roller One of those, one of our tortricid pests that can really cause damage to the grape a number of generations per year, a lot of different possibilities where it might come from in terms of a host plant material. So it can be very problematic. It would require a spray every single year, an additional spray for a tortricid pest, if it were to establish. [00:37:00] Craig Macmillan: one the big issue here is that it attacks the berries directly [00:37:03] Kent Daane: absolutely. [00:37:04] Craig Macmillan: Okay. So that's a, that's a serious problem. [00:37:07] Kent Daane: No, no, the, it, it causes mold and rot and everything else once it gets in there. So, you know, two or three doesn't seem like a lot. You just think, well, berry can go to crush, but that berry will get all kinds of bunch rot. not a good fruit. So when you think about the eradication program, where there was monitoring everywhere in the state. When you think about the eradication program, where when they found this pest through pheromone traps, and then they did a ground search to find out where it was. And then there was a coordinated investigation. Effort to spray the right materials, to use mating disruption, to go after it in all of the adjoining areas. those eradication programs are very intense. Area wide control programs. So, let's think about Vine mealybug, which is now in most vineyards. We're still approaching this on an individual grower basis. We might have one grower using mating disruption, because they're going to go organic, and a next door neighbor doing nothing. There's going to be constant movement of that pest into that grower's. field We might have two growers, one using Movento every other year, and another using Platinum every other year. Those males are going back and forth between those vineyards, sharing whatever genetic resistance that they're developing. And so really, if those growers are switching, one's using Movento, one's using Platinum that insect is moving between those vineyards all the time. And it's not a resistance management program, or you might have a small five acre grower deciding to put out mating disruption. Mating disruption works better blanketing the whole area. So an area wide program, and then you bring into it the idea of roguing leaf roll diseased vines. there are two things I just mentioned in this last 30 seconds that are so important for area wide management of mealybug and leaf roll that are the killers to those programs. The first is mating disruption still costs more money than a pesticide application. It's a fantastic tool. It is a tool that works better the lower and lower the mealybug density gets. So you use insecticides to really drop the mealybug population down, but there gets to be a point where the mealybugs are now on the bark. There are little populations here and there, and we know the insecticides are never 100 percent. Mating disruption works better. The lower the milli buck density is. [00:40:05] Craig Macmillan: Got it. [00:40:06] Kent Daane: But there's a cost to it. So we start with insecticides. The next part is the rowing of the infected vines. That's very important on an area wide basis because if you're planting, you've had, vineyard is old, it's not productive, it's had leaf roll. You pull it out, but it's right next to a block that's got 80 percent infected vines. You're always going to have new infections showing up over and over and over again. Unless that grower next to you is just doing this bang up job of applying insecticides all the time to keep mealybugs from going into your vineyard. you can make area wide control work for the pathogen. and the pest. But in the best world, let's say you're in control of a thousand acres, pull out every vineyard that's infected and replant and then pull out every new infection in it. And people just can't afford this. [00:41:06] Craig Macmillan: Right. [00:41:07] Kent Daane: if you're managing 200, 300 acres and Your vineyard with leaf roll that's at 30 percent is still profitable. it's hard to pull out those 30%. It's just hard to do. I get it. But something that I wish we could get, you know, government subsidy for to, to have them help us come in, pull out the infected vines, start clean again. But it does work. It's worked in South Africa. It's worked in New Zealand. It's worked in Napa. It just comes at a cost that may be prohibitive in some regions, in some areas. So the best we can do is to manage mealybug and the disease incidence in an area wide manner. [00:41:52] Craig Macmillan: if I remember correctly, I mean, the work has been done now that, demonstrates roguing is your best strategy overall long term, but it's expensive short term. and that is the issue. That's the tricky bit. [00:42:06] Kent Daane: There are two tricky bits to it. The first tricky bit is the expense you just talked about. The second tricky bit is that in most of the regions where we know it's worked They have not been dealing, perhaps, with our vine mealybug. They've been dealing with the grape mealybug, long tail mealybug, obscure mealybug. we've got I think the worst mealybug. And maybe that mealybug is just better at surviving on root remnants. You know, you hear all the time from growers, I r I've been removing 10 percent of my vineyard every single year for five years. And when I looked at The south African data, they removed 20%. Second year, 5%. Third year, 3%. Fourth year, 1%. And after that, it was always 1%. [00:42:54] Craig Macmillan: last piece of this puzzle in my mind is you have to get your neighbors to cooperate. That's the area wide bit. You have to get people to get on the same page in terms of what they're doing. And it sounds to me like they don't necessarily have to be doing exactly the same thing. They just have to be sensitive to what somebody else wants to do. Does that sound right? [00:43:15] Kent Daane: There are areas where it has worked well. It can work in the Central Coast. It can work in Lodi. We may not see, you know, eradication of diseased vines. We may not see a reduction of vine mealybug to a point where we can treat every other year. We might be treating every single year. for this, but we can improve what we're doing through communication right now. In the central Valley, we're working with a great group of growers where we're just mapping out the vine mealybug and we're sharing with the growers where the melaybug populations are. It's their decision. What? What to use, what to do for control. It's their decision. Can they rogue or not rogue? But what we're trying to do is to help foster communication amongst the different growers that are neighbors, because we're a third party, which I think helps a little bit. it would be fantastic if we could have someone hired as a scout or PCA, where we work with. PCAs in the region and everyone shares data. We're trying a new computer program this year, which we at the end of the season, we'll launch with our collaborating growers where they can log on in real time. and see what the trap counts are as we count those trap counts. And that will help them make a decision, we hope, on what to do in terms of control measures. But again, the best thing might be that we're opening up communication, just as the Vineyard team is doing through podcasts, through field days, through the website. [00:44:55] Craig Macmillan: Well, let's hope. And I, and there's a number of other organizations too. the, the group in Lodi has done a fantastic job from what I understand. Fostering communication and sharing information. like you said, I think that's probably one of our, our, our best hopes. Is working collaboratively as an industry and getting communication between the experts like PCAs and the extension community. . [00:45:15] Kent Daane: And of course, anyone can always reach out to me with questions as well. [00:45:18] Craig Macmillan: Fantastic. And we'll put your information in the show notes. I want to thank you for being on the podcast. fantastic. Very helpful and very, very exciting. I think I was feeling a little more dismal about this whole topic coming into this interview than I am now. I think there's maybe more potential than I was kind of giving credit. I, you know, I come from a time back in the 90s when Vine Mealybugs showed up in the Central Coast. And it was a lot of gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, and we did not know what to do, and the damage was insane. I mean, I saw stuff that was just blood curdling, and I think we've come a long way. We've come a long way, and that's from the efforts of folks like you, so I really appreciate it. I want to thank our guest, Kent Daane. He is a Cooperative Extension Specialist with the University of California, Berkeley. he works primarily out of the Kearney Ag Research Extension Center. And, thanks so much for being on the podcast. This is great. [00:46:10] Kent Daane: Thank you very much. Enjoy the harvest time coming up. Nearly perfect transcription by Descript

united states university california texas canada europe israel washington england mexico arizona european green italy management kings spanish spain new zealand north america oregon south africa african turkey iran portugal valley heard iraq chile effort peru south america impacts kent north american classic berkeley sacramento vine wide mediterranean vineyard fostering coachella fascinating grapes ecology platinum kern mm seeks scouting fresno argentine sicily napa uc lifecycle pest monterey lady bird regions growers u s sonoma citrus sicilian fairly central coast mating pca san luis obispo lodi sergei admire descript eradicate mesopotamian north coast spraying brix coachella valley san joaquin valley insecticides tulare ficus napa county extension center igr pcas california berkley danny gonzales neonics napa sonoma biological control virginia creeper houston wilson cooperative extension specialist igrs mealybug vineyard team

Archive Select: Cryptolaemus Montrouzieri aka The Mealybug Destroyer

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 5, 2024 78:36

One from the Archives… Recorded live on January 19th, 2023 Two people making music on the fly… Bugs In The Basement creates improvised musical journeys from an array of vintage and handmade instruments to modern technologies. Recorded live from our basement studio in the Pacific Northwest, each week we experiment in the process of making exploratory music and soundscapes. Unmixed, unedited and unapologetic. www.bugsinthebasement.com

pacific northwest archive select destroyer unmixed mealybug bugs in the basement

Episode 238 - Medieval “Science” and Root Mealies

The Houseplant Coach

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 22, 2024 67:34

Go to 27:30 to skip story time! But also: thank you for the privilege of nerding out for your benefit

science root plants soil bugs medieval houseplants mealybug

Principal Entomologist Dr Brian Thistleton says a native ladybird is being released onto trees to combat plant pest, Papaya mealybug in Darwin which can cause fruit to drop and leaves to turn yellow

360 with Katie Woolf

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 8, 2024 7:01

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode 210 - Pest Diagnosis!

The Houseplant Coach

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 29, 2023 56:40

It's that time again! In this episode I go through the most common houseplant pests, quick description of recommended treatment, and diagnostic tips :)

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Rhizoecus Falcifer aka The Ground Mealybug

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 6, 2023 104:58

Recorded live on February 2nd, 2023 Two people making music on the fly… Bugs In The Basement creates improvised musical journeys from an array of vintage and handmade instruments to modern technologies. Recorded live from our basement studio in the Pacific Northwest, each week we experiment in the process of making exploratory music and soundscapes. Unmixed, unedited and unapologetic. www.bugsinthebasement.com

ground pacific northwest unmixed mealybug bugs in the basement

Cryptolaemus Montrouzieri aka The Mealybug Destroyer

My Ag Life Daily News Report

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 24, 2023 78:36

Recorded live on January 19th, 2023 Two people making music on the fly… Bugs In The Basement creates improvised musical journeys from an array of vintage and handmade instruments to modern technologies. Recorded live from our basement studio in the Pacific Northwest, each week we experiment in the process of making exploratory music and soundscapes. Unmixed, unedited and unapologetic. www.bugsinthebasement.com

pacific northwest destroyer unmixed mealybug bugs in the basement

Episode 404 | August 23, 2022 | Citrus Mealybug, 'Adopt a Tree' Program

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 23, 2022 30:46

On this week's MyAgLife in Citrus episode, we hear about citrus mealybug's threat to the San Joaquin Valley. Additionally, Vicky Boyd reports on Almond Girl Jenny's 'Adopt a Tree' program. Supporting the People who Support Agriculture Thank you to our sponsors who make it possible to get you your daily news. Please feel free to visit their websites. The California Walnut Board – https://walnuts.org/ PhycoTerra® –https://phycoterra.com/ Verdesian - https://vlsci.com/

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130: The biological Control of Vine Mealybug Using Mealybug Destroyers and Anagyrus Wasps

Green and Growing with Ashley Frasca

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2022 30:20

Vine Mealybug (VMB) is a challenging pest in many vineyards. Growers are increasingly incorporating biological control into their Integrated Pest Management programs by releasing Mealybug Destroyers and Anagyrus Wasps. Brett Chandler, President and General Manager at Associates Insectary explains how these two beneficials help manage VMB populations. The Mealybug Destroyer (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri) is a predator beetle. It feeds on eggs and small stages of VMB. The Anagyrus Wasp is a parasite. It lays eggs inside the Mealybug. The challenge with the wasp is that they are very susceptible to many chemicals and require more specialized conditions to be effective. Brett describes how to monitor for both Mealybug and beneficials, when and how often to release the insects, the best release methods, and how to pair beneficials with chemical control. References: 26: Controlling Mealybug Vectors of Grapevine Viruses 119: Vine Mealybug 101: Species Identification, Lifecycle, and Scouting to Create an IPM Program An Important First Step in Biocontrol: Don't Kill the Good Insects Associates Insectary Beneficial organisms for vine mealybug control Donate to the Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship Anagyrus vladimiri (formerly pseudococci) Mealybug Destroyer (Cryptolaemus montrouzieri) Natural enemies of Pseudococcus mealybugs SIP Certified Sustainable and Organic Control of Vine Mealybug in Vineyards: Two Growers, Two Approaches Sustainable Ag Expo November 14-16, 2022 Vine Mealybug Management- UCIPM Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org. Transcript Craig Macmillan 0:00 And with us today is Brett Chandler, president and general manager of associates and secretary in Santa Paula, California. And thanks for being here. Brett Chandler 0:07 Thank you for having us Craig. Craig Macmillan 0:10 You have been in the world of biological control for a long time. And you have seen a lot of trends and a lot of different approaches and a lot of different paths. And the pest that I want to talk about today is vine mealybug on winegrapes, specifically, and I'm very interested in the bio control strategies that people are employing and how they're doing it and how successful they're turning out to be. And some of the advantages of taking a biocontrol approach. Brett Chandler 0:35 Well, it's actually an integrated approach, where you integrate your chemicals, as a last resort, your cultural practices as a first mainline, and then most importantly, monitoring the insects, both the good and the bad, and keeping a good track on what's happening in the vineyard. And it's much easier than most people think, Craig Macmillan 0:57 You know, I want to shift to that one point there right away as as one of the challenges is you have to measure to manage, right, that's a common saying. And with beneficial insects, one of the challenges that I always found was how to monitor beneficial insects. I was a field checker for a long time, and I'd find lots of pests, but I couldn't find the beneficials. But we had reason to believe that they were part of the ecosystem, you know, populations would go up and down. And, you know, what recommendations do you have for any particular organism, maybe Cryptolaemus ? For monitoring what the populations are like? Brett Chandler 1:30 Cryptolaemus, the organism itself is pretty standout, it's pretty obvious. But when it's feeding among the mealybugs, it's very easy to mistake because it's a mimic, it looks just like the mealybugs, and it can be working among there in numbers that you don't notice, unless you really take the time to look at it. What you're going to find with, say Cryptolaemus feeding is you'll find empty egg masses, where you'll see the white fluffy egg mass where the mealybug normally produces it young, but they're actually empty. And that you come to find is easier to recognize, the more often you see it. It's not that technical, but it is something you need to recognize. And through repetition, it's very doable for most most farm employees. Craig Macmillan 2:14 And again, that's a combination of recognizing the insect itself and also recognizing the evidence that the insect has been there. Because oftentimes, that's what we're looking at is we're looking at the indirect evidence, you know, I should mention, I just dived right in. So the Cryptolaemus montrouzieri is the mealybug destroyer, and is a predator, is that correct? Brett Chandler 2:34 Correct. It's a predator as opposed to the Wasp, which are parasites, which lay their eggs inside the mealybug. The Cryptolaemus beetle actually feeds on the eggs and consumes mass quantities of the eggs and smaller stages of the mealybugs. It's a it's a predator like any other that is not attached to any one stage, but feeds at all stages available to consume. Craig Macmillan 2:58 Tell me a little bit about predators. I mean about parasites next. Brett Chandler 3:01 The parasites, they're a very unique creature. They're highly specialized, they will only feed on one or two species where they can find and lay their eggs. Only the females do the feeding, the males do no feeding, they simply breed and provide no control. They are also very susceptible to many chemicals that the beetles or other predators may be less susceptible to. They also are very host specific. In other words, if there's not enough of the pest around, they won't find it and they may starve. If there's too many, they may be repelled, or they don't like them at that high density. So they're a very, very specific tool for a very specific circumstance. But broadly, the need to be used in only specific locations and times of year because they're they're quite delicate. Craig Macmillan 3:55 You mentioned feeding. I thought the parasitoid wasps just lay their egg in the adult. And then it was the larva yes that had hatched out that does the damage. Is that right? Brett Chandler 4:08 Well, actually, it does both. It's called Host feeding. And host feeding occurs in some cases where they're not getting enough protein. And they may feed on one because they'll find a mealybug and if it's too small or too large, they won't lay their eggs on it. But they may kill it by feeding on it or merely annoying it. Actually the Asian citrus psyllid parasitoid tamarixia, it kills twice as many by feeding than it does actually laying eggs. Craig Macmillan 4:34 There you go, that it's fantastically interesting. If I'm trying to monitor for the wasps. How do I go about doing that? Because they're tiny. Unknown Speaker 4:42 Very, very difficult. But again, early season, they're going to be laying their eggs inside the smaller mealybug and it's very difficult to find but once the first generation has passed, and the adult Wasp has emerged from what we call the mummy, where the egg has crawled out and become an adult fed on the mealybug. And emerged by chewing a hole just like a chick, choose a hole in a chicken egg, you see that characteristic round hole in the mealybug pupa. And that tells you that an Anagyrus adult emerge from that pupa. Craig Macmillan 5:16 When we think of pest monitoring, and we think of densities, and we count or we quantify somehow, and then we come up with changes over time. Maybe we do our timings or pesticide timings, maybe based on that or decisions, whether we use pesticides at all based on that. What are the ways of measuring density? And what kinds of density measures do we use and thresholds to use for deciding Yes, this is really working well. Or maybe I need to do an augmentative release. Brett Chandler 5:44 Well, for both of these, this is not an established what classic biological control where you release once and allow it to come on. The insect and the Wasp with the mealybug have what's called a dynamic equilibrium where it takes them time to bring the population down. And so that time may be too long, where the grape clusters are infested with the mealybug. And you don't allow that to happen. So you use the technique called an inundated release, where you release many more than the natural population would be in hopes of bringing down the climbing population because the key to control is actually the second generation of these insects that are released whether wasp or beetle, not the first generation. A wasp can lay 100 to 150 eggs, a beetle can lay up to 400 eggs. So that's 400 times the control in the second generation than the first. Craig Macmillan 6:39 And how do we distribute these in the field? What's the what's the method by which both the beetle and the Wasp are introduced? Brett Chandler 6:46 Many methods can be used. Drones are much more popular now and being used. The drone pilots are quite quite adept at getting them where they need to be when they need to be. We work with companies like Parabug, who are quite familiar with working with the beetles and depositing them quite a bit in the Central Valley forests and other growing locations and the Wasp as well. Hand releasing can if you have a clumped distribution, where you only have pockets, hand release is probably better if you have it broadly where the vine mealybug is broadly throughout the vineyard, a drone is helpful. But drones can be expensive to come for just five or 10 acres, you need to get a large acreage to make it effective where several neighbors get together and the neighboring vineyards all working together to allow it to happen. Drone pilots have to travel, their time. So to be cost effective, you need a larger acres for the drone. But at the same time, you need manpower available to release by hand as well. Craig Macmillan 7:43 So for dropping a beetle, we're dropping as an adult? Brett Chandler 7:48 Yes, we ship the beatles as adult their wings and they can fly. So when they come out, they'll drop a little and start flying and working towards the vine. And settle on the line, if there's any mealybug in the area, they will immediately be olfactory stimulated to search for them. They smell the mealybug and that's one of the driving things that attracts them and keeps them in the vineyard. Feeding as long as the population is is active. Craig Macmillan 8:49 Is that true for the Wasp as well? Brett Chandler 8:49 The Wasp is more of a solitary searcher, they like very small numbers when the vine mealybug are just emerging from under the bark or maybe on the edge. When high numbers of vine mealybug come out, they unfortunately attract the ants and the ants are the downfall of the Anagyrus. Anagyrus goes from very effective to about 2% effective when the ants are active in the in the vineyards. It is a big limiting factor of theirs. Whereas the Beatles because of their mimicry, they even smell like the mealybugs, and the ants will ignore the juveniles. Once the adults have laid the eggs, the ants will ignore them. And they can feed and control the mealybug with no disturbance from the ants. Craig Macmillan 8:55 Interesting. Is there an advantage to using both types of organisms? Brett Chandler 8:59 You can if you're properly timed in high numbers mid season, the beetles are definitely better because they're more effective. As far as bringing down high numbers and a little more tolerant of active spray programs. If you're using mating disruption that works very well. A recent study showed that beetle feeding is actually stimulated by the odors of mealybugs by the female pheromone and it actually stimulates their feedings. So it not only collaborates but it's actually a synergistic effect if you're using pheromone systems like the CheckMate or something like that. And if you're using trapping, that also helps you to time your initial releases of your parasitoids where you want to get them out there very early and as about a week after your first flight is a good time to plan to release. The problem is you don't know exactly when that is and that's the biggest problem is the lead time to get these insects grown. It's about 80 days for the Wasp and about 105 days for the beetles where we have to have those on hand and have started growing them 100 days before you need them. And that's that's the limitation, they don't have a long shelf life. Craig Macmillan 10:10 So tell me more about the rearing, I think this is really fascinating. Brett Chandler 10:13 The rearing system is actually rearing on live mealybug host, we rear ours on citrus mealybug, which is a similar host to vine or grape mealy bug, but not problematic if it should escape. So we have large colonies of millions of mealybugs in enclosed spaces, where we raise them to high densities, let the beetles go in the rooms, the adults lay their eggs, feed, reproduce, those 500 400 eggs hatch out, and then we harvest them out of the room, put them in bottles, and ship them to growers. And we've got about five to 10 days from harvest to use them so that they're still strong and vital. That's why we can't hold them over really from more than a week. Craig Macmillan 10:55 So do you have like phases, you have different different populations that are kind of different stages, so that you can kind of hit the windows as you're going forward? Because otherwise you'd have everybody coming online at 105 days. That'd be like, okay, we got five days to do all the business in the world. Let's get them out there now. You must must wrap it up somehow. Brett Chandler 11:15 Yeah, you're exactly right, we start logistics in January, and start talking to growers all the way up as far as Napa is down as far south as Delano, and everywhere in between. And if you'll notice, the vines come on at different times along that gradient as well as you run north to south. So that staggers it a little bit. But May and June are we're swamped. We're selling every one we can grow and working to grow more each year. So we do have to stagger them. And we do have almost 50 rearing rooms, where we have cycles coming off every couple of days. So we have fresh every couple of days. So it's continually going on a year round basis. And interesting thing this winter has been we sold tripled the number of beetles this winter than we normally have. And it's just taxing our staff to the maximum. So unfortunately, this year, we are not going to be rearing the Anagyrus Wasp, we simply don't have the manpower for it this year. I believe there's another source for those that's available. But the beetle demand is so strong, we're doubling our population from last year and thinking we're going to need to double it again to make it available because demand is so high. Craig Macmillan 12:24 So this is really been adopted? Brett Chandler 12:25 Very much very much. We've been doing it for about 10 years up in Napa and about eight years in the Central Valley and then scattered through that in the Central Coast. And it's becoming more and more driven by the the customers the end customers that want to see a sustainability component to the grapes going into the system. And also a big problem shifting towards the Beatles is the big problem has been for the Anagyrus has been the loss of Lorsban. Chlorpyrifos was actually a very good IPM tool that could be sprayed at the base of the vines to keep keep the ants at bay and allow the Wasps and the Beatles to do a better job. And with this loss, and not a great replacement on the horizon, people are having to use more and more than they did at the past. I mentioned about the Anagyrus dropping off, it drops about 75% and effectiveness when ants are present. So as ants come up, you need many more Anagyrus to get the same concentration in the past. And same thing with the beetles which were treating a lot more acres than we had but also more per acre. Craig Macmillan 13:32 So there's no overwintering of either of these organisms? Brett Chandler 13:37 There actually is. As far up as as in Tracy and Lodi area, we've had some overwinterings in most winters. The problem is the numbers are so low, that it's hard to get them going in the spring. You kind of have to kickstart it, but we do get carryover particularly along the coast, we get a lot more carryover. But the wasp, the populations dropped so low, it's very, very difficult to get much carryover with that. So seasonal inundative releases, which is what we've used in citrus for almost 100 years. We've been growing these beetles here for just about 95 years, and they're a great supplement to your pest control. You can't expect classic, practical,complete biocontrol in a crop that is not a naturally occurring ecosystem. There's not an ecosystem somewhere with 100 acres of perfectly uniform vines all coming in at the same time. Craig Macmillan 14:27 Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And so this is not a refugia issue. It's not like oh, if I just had the right you know habitat for them they would establish and hangover it's that isn't that's not really a strategy that would work either populations in place. Brett Chandler 14:42 In most areas you can get a few but the refugia is, can be problematic. They like soft bodied pests, the beatles particular and the mealybug you're not going to get mealybug to produce over the winter they go underground or under the bark so there's simply no food available for the wasp. But the beetle will feed on many soft bodied insects, reproduce on several species of mealybugs. But truthfully, there's not much activity during the winter months, and they have to kind of settle down and it takes them a while to get up to numbers and the pests being, taking advantage of that get jump started in the spring. So if you could get caught up, but you may be on your economic threshold, and they may be in your bunches by the time you get that done. Craig Macmillan 15:29 What is the integration of cultural control, cultural practices, biological control, chemical control? So the, you know, the classical IPM framework. What do you see growers doing in terms of that integrated approach that's working well, not just for the control the mealybug, but it's also making it possible for these other practices to work well? Brett Chandler 15:51 Well, the control of the ants through either minor cultivation, or banding with sticky, sticky materials on on the poles and on the lines to exclude the ants. Cultural practices as the're pruning to flag where it was a problem last year, you got those black vines, you've got sooty mold residues so that it combines to catch your eye particularly at this time of year at budbreak. And early in the season. flag that. That's going to be where you're going to see your activity first. And you can have a reward to your pruners to your irrigators to weed people working. Give them the flag and they come back and show you how many they did and you buy them lunch, something like that. Anyone can notice the black stains, you don't have to be highly educated. Then you concentrate your scouting on those black spots rather than having to canvass the entire vineyard. Where the black spots are is where you're gonna see the problem emerge first. Later in the season for spread, you'll have to spend more time. But that's a good economy of time, is to allow everyone that goes through the vineyard to have a part in monitoring. Craig Macmillan 16:59 And then I can target what I do, whether it's a release or, or whatever. How to pesticides come into play here? Because I think there's always a conflict between biological control agents and pesticides. Brett Chandler 17:12 We found a good solution in the citrus which seems to work in the grapes just as well. Particularly with newer products like Movento, Spirotetramat, very soft on beneficials, goes into the tree provides long control, goes into the vine provides long control, is not particularly disruptive, has very low surface residue. We found the mealybug and the Cryptolaemus aren't too disrupted by sulfur sprays either. And they do pretty well there. Abeamectin sprays for mites seem to do pretty well. Some of the plant growth regulators though can be quite hard on the beetles. Like Esteem. They will impact them as well. So that is something although it's considered safe for parasitoids, it's not safe for predators. And so we want to watch those when you combine those. Imidacloprid doesn't seem to do too much of a problem with when that's chemigated in or even applied on on a surface surface treatment. We just tried to time the releases to say a week after after your application of something like that, or a few days before a sulphur spraying. By timing it allows the beatles to find it, lay their eggs, which they will almost immediately, same with the wasps. Having something blowing dust. Even if it is just sulfur dust is highly disruptive, no one would want to have a bag of dust blown on them. And so just the disruption breaks down their activity. So giving them a few days of free time to get used to the odors, detect the mealybug find them do their feeding or their egg laying before you have to pass through again. So the calibration and the timing and the synchronization between your scheduled sprays is is it's usually not too hard to do but it does take a little forethought. Craig Macmillan 18:53 You might have mentioned this but I'm not positive, we're talking about a release in the spring. They're not additional releases after that, it's a one release per year. Brett Chandler 19:02 Actually not. The Anagyrus are so expensive to rear the high numbers aren't practical and so many are lost for various reasons that they release about every two weeks up to eight times a year. The Cryptolaemus we do an initial release at a base number and then a follow up release if it's if it's needed by by scouting and and about 50% of the time it's needed. So Cryptolaemus maybe once maybe twice, antivirus up to eight times. So there's a lot more work involved in the Anagyrus. So and they're more expensive. So you want to make sure you're using an expensive tool like that to its best effect. So if you have ants, Anagyrus are not recommended. Craig Macmillan 19:45 Now we talked about the fact that overwintering isn't really practical, but what things can I do during the season to encourage protect, promote the beneficial insects that I've released? Brett Chandler 19:54 Very simply the some of the broadleaf plants, some of the lupins and things like that will, if allowed to grow near the vines, will offer a little alternate nectar and a little food if the numbers are getting low for the beetles. The wasps, they will host feed. Like I say they're much more delicate, and it's hard to keep them around. That's why the constant releases during the year because of multiple overlapping generations, they're only feeding on about four days out of 30. Of a 30 day lifecycle for the mealybug, only four days that mealybug appropriate to be stung. So trying to get that you're releasing constantly to provide some loss there at every stage of the life. So that one wasp finds its mealybugs every couple of weeks. The main thing is to keep the disruption of the harsh chemicals to a minimum, or at least timed and coordinate with your insectary. The other thing is coordinating with your insectary and getting to know your supplier. Ask them do you have you know, customers already booked for this time. You know, historically, when when you've first seen it each year. You know historically, when your bunches normally close up, and when you want to get it in there. Follow the the history of vineyard and have it in your mind when you speak to them and give them a target window as early as possible. And they will work with you. You may have to shift a week or two, like I said one way or the other because of availability, but we're constantly expanding production to try and supply everyone as needed. But it's the growth of this. It's grown 30 40% In the last two years in demand, and it's just quite a quite a tough talent to find people that know how to grow insects to hire them. There's not a job board you put up and say, recruiting insecr rearing people, come on over. Craig Macmillan 21:37 What is your experience? What are growers telling you? This sounds like this is a grower to grower explosion. Talking to people and I'm like. So what are you hearing back from growers that's making them so excited or making them really recommend this to their neighbors? Brett Chandler 21:52 It seems that they see results. But it's very difficult to quantify an exact percentage, but they're they're satisfied with it. We had one grower who started out and promised he would buy from us if we wouldn't tell anyone he was using them. He thought it was a competitive advantage. And he wanted to keep it a secret from his neighbors because he thought he had one up on them. Craig Macmillan 22:16 Meanwhile, the pressure of spread from across the fence line continues. I can see that I get you know I can I can see the mindset there. It makes sense. It makes sense. That's one thing I've always loved about this industry, and I've learned about Ag in general is how kind of collaborative it is. Insane things in the wine side, people ask me, you know, oh, or you know, how cutthroat is it? And it's like, well, there is competition, but also everybody's in the same boat. We're all facing the same problems. It's all the same time. You know, I mean, we're kind of a community regardless. With that idea, are you finding, is the spread of information, is this via meetings? Is it just one to one? Is there press stories that have made a difference? I, I'm just really curious about this as a model for other kinds of sustainable technologies. Brett Chandler 23:01 It I think it's a combination of both. But the onside demonstration, the Lodi, grape growers have have had onsite demonstrations of drone releases for everyone to see. Things like the the Ag Expo, it's been going on and talking about that Kena Daane's been talking about it for several years. But now the practicality of it is really coming forward because people were scared that it was a lot more work. And it's not really. But it is it is a different kind of work, and it is practicable. But it does produce good results. And that's why the growers are coming back year after year to us and buying more each year. I don't think they'd be wasting their money if if they didn't think it was effective. And it seems to be that they're quite satisfied with with the results they're seeing in all aspects of it. Craig Macmillan 23:48 Are there new things on the horizon? Or things that have just kind of happened recently that are exciting? Are there other organisms that have potential or there are other methods that are starting to show us potential? Do we have new information about the fine mealybug we didn't have before? Brett Chandler 24:02 You'll have to talk to Dr. Daane about that. Kent knows all the details. I know he's working very hard on it. And he has been for many years. As I say, I think the drone technology and the practicality of the drones is making it more practical to people. Because whether it's an insect or a vineyard, you don't have people standing around, you're usually short handed, especially now. And the drones allow them to also to cooperate them with themselves and their neighbors and work among themselves to have the drone come in and do large scale releases. And that frees up the labor and they may take a few and do some a couple spot releases, but overall they can do broad releases and introduce them to an area, frankly the way we have done with the scale parasites in the citrus for 65 years. And the innondative, area wide approach brings it down and tends to expand overall control. While it's hard to tell on an individual vineyard block or orchard the overall regional control, you'll see it effectively as the numbers begin to drop. As long as we can keep good control of the ants. The ants are a plague in the citrus as well and a huge problem for us. And we use the Lorsban as well and founded quite an effective IPM tool, and we're looking forward to some useful replacement on the near horizon. Craig Macmillan 25:18 Is there a biological control agent for their Argentine Ant? Brett Chandler 25:22 They've tried. The thing is a super colony, believe it or not, in other parts of the world, two colonies from 50 yards apart, will fight each other. But most of Western California is one super colony of Argentine Ants that cooperate and feed. They actually keep the Fire Ants out. Where they have controlled them. The Fire Ants come in and they reduce the control and the Fire Ants are decimated by the Argentine Ants in Southern California. Craig Macmillan 25:49 That's interesting. That's really, really interesting. Well, I want to thank you for being our guest today. This has been great, a lot of great information and some kind of hope, I feel. It's exciting when we get biological control success. At the beginning of the philosophy, like you said, going back 100 or more years ago to classical approach, we had a couple of successes that were really, really exciting. And then people kind of discovered how difficult it was. And I really appreciate folks like you and the rest of the community that keep sticking to this idea, and finding ways to make it work, because it's a fantastic strategy, and it has its place may not be perfect, but man, it makes a huge difference. And I think that's really great. I want to appreciate that. So I want to thank our guest, Brett Chandler, President and General Manager of Associates Insectary for being on the show today. I look forward to seeing you again. It's been a few years before just bumping into you in person again. Brett Chandler 26:40 I hope so. Craig, look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Citrus Greening and the Lebbeck Mealybug 2/5/22 Hour 1

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 5, 2022 31:57

Dr. Dave Coyle discusses a bug not here in Ga yet, but get ready. Plus the top 3 things to be doing in the landscape!

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119: Vine Mealybug 101: Species Identification, Lifecycle, and Scouting to Create an IPM Program

My Ag Life Daily News Report

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 4, 2021 25:05

The first pillar of any successful IPM (Integrated Pest Management Program) is to know the pest you want to manage. Emily Symmes, Entomologist and Technical Field Manager at Suterra, addresses the basics of vine mealybug (VMB) in grapes in this expert from the 2020 Sustainable Ag Expo. VMB are phloem eaters, piercing the trunk, canes, and berry clusters and vectoring leafroll-associated viruses. In high populations, they will weaken the vines and can cause vine decline and death. Their rapid development time and often overlapping generations make using selective pesticides challenging because multiple lifecycles are active at one time. Adding to the management challenge, VMB spread easily by machinery, workers, and birds. Proper species identification is vital to understand biologies and seasonal cycles of the VMB. Monitoring should be managed with both pheromone trapping and scouting throughout the year. Pheromone traps are most effective when placed at the vineyard entrance since VMB come in on machinery. Additional traps can be placed in the center of the block. Visual scouting should include looking for active VMB under the bark, in leaves, and in clusters, as well as signs of their existence including honeydew and ants. Listen in to learn more about VMB identification and management. References: 26: Controlling Mealybug Vectors of Grapevine Viruses 49: Stopping the Spread of Red Leaf Viruses An Important First Step in Biocontrol: Don't Kill the Good Insects Biology and Management of Mealybugs in Vineyards SIP Certified Sustainable Ag Expo Sustainable and Organic Control of Vine Mealybug in Vineyards: Two Growers, Two Approaches Suterra UC Pest Management Guidelines Vine Mealybug Vine Mealybug vs. Grape Mealybug Identification Get More Subscribe on Google Play, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

Episode 172 - September 28, 2021 - Citrus News; Vine Mealybug; Sustainable Ag

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 28, 2021 45:13

In today's show, we have the latest citrus news from around the globe, including work researchers are doing to create citrus that is resistant to HLB. Also, Taylor Chalstrom sits down with Kent Daane, UCCE IPM specialist, at this year's Crop Consultant Conference to discuss biology of and management strategies for vine mealybug in grapevines. Supporting the People who Support Agriculture Thank you to our sponsors who make it possible to get you your daily news. Please feel free to visit their websites. AgroPlantae - https://www.agroplantae.com/ Agromillora – https://www.agromillora.com/ California Citrus Mutual – https://www.cacitrusmutual.com/ The California Walnut Board – https://walnuts.org/ Soil and Crop – https://mysoilandcrop.com/ TriCal, Inc. - https://www.trical.com/

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9/24/21 - MyAgLife Episode 84: Interview with UCCE's Kent Daane about Vine Mealybug in Grapevines

MyAgLife

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2021 13:01

Taylor Chalstrom sits down with Kent Daane, UCCE IPM specialist, at this year's Crop Consultant Conference to discuss biology of and management strategies for vine mealybug in grapevines.

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Episode 63 - Mealybug Madness :D

The Houseplant Coach

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2021 27:28

madness mealybug

2/19/21 - Gill's Mealybug in Pistachio: Experts Warn of Increased Presence in California Pistachio Orchards / West Coast Nut February 2021

MyAgLife

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 19, 2021 7:59

Listen to this article from West Coast Nut by Associate Editor Cecilia Parsons.

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Vine Mealybug Management

California Ag Today

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 23, 2020

The University of California Ag and Natural Resources are trying to find better management techniques for vine mealybug.

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Planococcus Citri aka The Citrus Mealybug

Play Episode Listen Later May 24, 2020 79:04

Recorded live on May 21st, 2020 Two people making music on the fly… Bugs In The Basement creates improvised musical journeys from an array of vintage and handmade instruments to modern technologies. Recorded live from our basement studio in the Pacific Northwest, each week we experiment in the process of making exploratory music and soundscapes. Unmixed, unedited and unapologetic. www.bugsinthebasement.com

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213: Fugitive emissions

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2020 61:17

Vincent, Elio and Michael discuss the stability of human coronaviruses on surfaces and in aerosols, and peptidoglycan production by a mosaic consisting of a bacterium within a bacterium within an insect. Links for this episode: Human coronavirus 229E infectivity on common surfaces (mBio) Aerosol and surface stability of SARS-CoV-2 (medRxiv) Peptidoglycan synthesis by a insect-bacteria mosaic (Cell) Letters read on TWiM 213 Become a patron of TWiM. Music used on TWiM is composed and performed by Ronald Jenkees and used with permission. Send your microbiology questions and comments to twim@microbe.tv

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71: New Techniques to Detect Grapevine Leafroll Disease

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 13, 2019 31:35

Gerhard (Gerry) Pietersen is a plant virologist with an interest in solving problems in South African agriculture related to plant viruses. In this interview Gerry discusses the severe plant health and economic impacts seen in South Africa from Grapevine leafroll disease, the importance of regional buy in to establish a control program including a very successful collaboration of 50 adjoining farms in New Zealand, and new techniques to detect the virus including loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and grafting sensitive red cultivars on white cultivars to use the shoot as an indicator. Gerhard joined the Agricultural Research Council- Plant Protection Research Institute (PPRI), Pretoria in December, 1980 after obtaining his BSc. in Botany and Microbiology from the University of the Witwatersrand. He obtained an MSc-Microbiology at the University of Pretoria in 1984, and completed his PhD. at WITS in 1989. He spent eighteen months at Oregon State University, USA. His current research portfolio involves; 1) control of grapevine leafroll disease caused in South Africa by grapevine leafroll associated virus type 3 (GLRaV-3) using an integrated research strategy, 2) doing research on viruses of maize as a means of pre-empting the possible incursion of maize chlorotic mottle virus into South Africa, and 3) working on Liberibacters potentially associated with citrus greening or huanglongbing diseases. Between 2004 and 2009 he was employed by Citrus Research International (CRI) as Virologist and Program Manager, while seconded to the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology at University of Pretoria (UP). In 2009 he returned to the employ of Plant Protection Research Institute, while remaining seconded to UP. Gerhard has worked on viruses of many other crops during his career and has authored or co-authored 80 peer reviewed articles. References: Controlling Mealybug Vectors of Grapevine Viruses | Dr. Kent Daane (Podcast) Optimization of grapevine leafroll detection on white cultivars by sentinel canes | Gerhard Pietersen Red Blotch Virus in Grapevines | Dr. Marc Fuchs (Podcast) Stopping the Spread of Red Leaf Viruses | Dr. Kari Arnold (Podcast) Sustainable Ag Expo Three genetic grapevine leafroll-associated virus 3 variants identified from South African vineyards show high variability in their 5′UTR | Gerhard Pietersen Get More Subscribe on Google Play, iHeartRADIO, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

26: Controlling Mealybug Vectors of Grapevine Viruses

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2017 23:10

This podcast is an excerpt of the talk Dr. Kent Daane delivered at the 2017 Sustainable Ag Expo. Although Dr. Daane has laboratories on the Berkeley Campus and at the Kearney Ag Center in Parlier, much of his work is conducted in the vineyard. Recognized as one of the foremost experts in California on this controlling mealybug vectors of grapevine viruses, he shares the findings from some of his most recent research from the field. References: IPM Control of Vine Mealybug | Greg Pennyroyal, Vineyard Manager at Wilson Creek Winery (Podcast) Kent Daane | UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Sustainable Ag Expo Sustainable and Organic Control of Vine Mealybug in Vineyards: Two Growers, Two Approaches Vine Mealybug: What You Should Know | UC Agriculture & Natural Resources Publication Listen to the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

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IPM Control of Vine Mealybug Episode 15

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 5, 2017 16:51

Greg Pennyroyal, Vineyard Manager at Wilson Creek Winery and Vineyards in Temecula, California, discusses the appearance of vine mealybug in the Temecula Valley AVA, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) techniques, and how growers, academics, extensionists, and students came together to collectively monitor and manage this pest. References: San Jacinto College Vine Mealy Bug Video Sustainable and Organic Control of Vine Mealybug: Two Growers, Two Approaches Suterra “Vine Mealybug Flares Up in Central Coast” - Wines & Vines Wilson Creek Winery and Vineyards Listen to the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.

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TWiM #74: It came from the Siberian permafrost

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 12, 2014 70:14

Vincent, Elio, and Michael discuss a huge 30,000 year old virus recovered from Siberia, and nested symbiosis facilitated by horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to insect.

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TWiM #61: The irony of probiotics

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 7, 2013 59:38

Vincent, Elio, and Michele review how horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to an insect genome enables a tripartite nested mealybug symbiosis, and how probiotic bacteria work by competing for iron in the intestine.

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TWiM #17: Debugging endosymbiosis