New Resources Available for Emerald Ash Borer and Pollinator Safety

New Resources Available for Emerald Ash Borer and Pollinator Safety

We are happy to announce two new tools give the latest information about two hot topics: emerald ash borer and pollinator safety.

New Neonicotinoid Pollinator Website available for the Green Industry.
Doug Richmond and I have developed a mobile friendly website to help you answer questions you may have about how the use of neonicotinoid insecticides, like imidacloprid, dinotefuran, acetamiprid can affect pollinators. http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/neonicotinoids/  We provide specific fact sheets to help you safely protect plants from pest, while minimizing harm to pollinating insects. We also provide links to other resources to provide a science based background about the controversy.

Emerald Ash Borer Self Study Course
Self study courses for the Green Industry and Master Gardeners are now available at the following on our eabindiana.info website.
http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/eab/index.php?page=industries/selfstudy
Each course uses 100 slides to guide the student through the history, biology and management of emerald ash borer.  We review the latest tools, for diagnosing EAB and assessing tree health.  We also provide clear suggestions on how to come to an effective management decisions.  These both draw heavily on insecticide recommendations that were revised in June 2014 (http://extension.entm.purdue.edu/EAB/PDF/NC-IPM.pdf)  to include how to effectively apply imidacloprid, dinotefuran, azadirachtin and emamectin benzoate.
Students who can pass a 50 question quiz can print a certificate to demonstrate that they have received special training about EAB.

Cliff Sadof, Department of Entomology, Purdue University

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Use Purdue Plant Doctor Apps for Android and iPhones to Fix Plant Problems

Use Purdue Plant Doctor Apps for Android and iPhones to Fix Plant Problems

Correct diagnosis is the most important step you can take toward fixing plant problems. We took the best photos we had in our libraries and put them in our apps to help you become better plant managers. The Purdue Plant Doctor suite of smart phone apps will help you diagnose and find recommendations to manage the most common insect, disease and environmental problems on the most common trees and flowers in the landscape. Our apps are a pocket encyclopedia that uses over 2000 photos to identify and fix more than 200 problems on over 200 kinds of plants.

You can diagnose problems with our apps in three easy steps. First identify the kind of plant that has the problem. So, for example, if you are using the Purdue Tree Doctor, choose the kind of tree (eg. oak, maple, or pine) to narrow your search. Second, you choose the part of the plant that looks bad (leaves, flowers, branches, trunk or roots) to narrow your search even further. Third, you match the problem on the plant with our photos by swiping through our collection of high resolution photos. To save you time, the app arranges the photos for each of the plants so that the most common problems show up first! You can confirm your diagnosis by reading details linked to the photo.
If you already know the problem you have, just skip the diagnostic process and look it up from a list. Then you can get detailed information about the damage the problem can cause, its life cycle and how to control it with some combination of cultural practices and, if needed, a pesticide or fungicide.

All three apps, the Purdue Tree Doctor ($1.99), the Purdue Perennial Doctor ($0.99), and the Purdue Annual Doctor ($0.99) are available from the iTunes store. Although not yet optimized, it can be downloaded into your iTunes library and then loaded onto an iPad, where you can enjoy the larger pictures and format. 

The Purdue Tree Doctor is now available for Android in the Google Play Store for $1.99. This version will work on all Android devices including small and medium sized tablets.

Keep up on the latest versions and eventual release of Android versions of all three apps by checking the Purdue Plant Doctor website: https://purdueplantdoctor.com/

Cliff Sadof, Department of Entomology and Janna Beckerman, Department of Plant Pathology Purdue University

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White Grub Season Approaching: Remember to Follow Label Directions

White Grub Season Approaching: Remember to Follow Label Directions

Last month, a commercial landscape manager in Oregon made an off label application of dinotefuran to flowering linden trees resulting in the death of more than 25,000 bumblebees and immediate action by the Oregon Department of Agriculture to implement a six month ban on all dinotefuran products labeled for landscape use http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/docs/pdf/news/130627dinotefuran.pdf

The labels on dinotefuran products and all other neonicotinoid products marketed for turf and landscape use (imidacloprid, thiamethoxam and clothianidin; see table 1 below) contain clear and concise statements warning of the potential environmental hazards associated with applications to flowering plants. One example of a potential environmental hazard is the potential negative effects of these insecticides on bee populations which have declined in recent years.

This unfortunate incident should serve to remind us all about the potential costs of ignoring label directions. One mistake can cost an entire industry the use of critically important tools and, as we’ve seen in the Oregon case, State agencies can and will ban these insecticides in order to protect human and environmental health.

As many folks start to think this time of year about making insecticide applications to protect their lawns from white grubs, it may be prudent to keep a few things in mind.

1.  In any given year only about 20% of home lawns will be afflicted by damaging white grub populations in this part of the country.
2. The likelihood of a given lawn being afflicted with damaging white grub populations 2 years in a row is only about 50%
3. Some of our most common lawn weeds, such as white clover, provide excellent forage for bees and other beneficial insects, so proper weed control is a must if neonicotinoid insecticides will be used to control insect pests. In other words, if the lawn is weed free then an application of one of these insecticides should not pose a hazard to bees, but if the lawn has high populations of flowering clover these insecticides should not be applied.
4. Since neonicotinoids are systemic compounds that are readily taken up by plant roots, it may be advisable to maintain a reasonable buffer area between treated areas of the lawn and landscape beds where flowering plants that are likely to attract pollinators are less likely to take these products up through their roots.
5. When possible, it may be prudent to wait until after flowering to apply systemic insecticides to trees or other flowering plants to allow nearly a year between the application and the production of new flowers.

At the very least, use common sense and do your part by following the label.

Table 1. Trade names of turf insecticides containing a neonicotinoid as one of the active ingredients.

Common Name/Active Ingredient	Trade Name
dinotefuran	Zylam
clothianidin	Arena, Aloft
imidacloprid	Merit, Allectus and many post-patent products
thiamethoxam	Meridian

  

 

Doug Richmond, Turfgrass Entomologist

Cliff Sadof, Landscape Entomologist

Aaron Patton, Turfgrass Extension Specialist

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Tree Problems? We Have an App for That!

Tree Problems? We Have an App for That!

After two years of development, we have released a new smart phone app that will help you diagnose and find recommendations to manage over 175 tree problems on over 60 kinds of trees. We call it the Purdue Tree Doctor. It will be like having our entire library of photos and recommendations in your pocket when trying to make a diagnosis.  More importantly, you will be able to use these high resolution photos to help convince your clients of the accuracy of your diagnosis and of the need to make important management decisions.

If you know which type of tree you have (maple, oak, pine etc.) the app will help you match damaged plant parts with over 1,000 high-resolution photos, based upon the location of the problem: leaves, branches, stems, roots, etc. Once you have a tentative diagnosis you can double check it by following links on each photo to detailed descriptions of damage and stages of problem development. From there you can get advice for management. Alternatively, if you know the problem, you can use the aps to find management tips by searching through our problem list. This app is useful for most problems you will encounter in the Midwestern and Eastern United States.

For those of you with spotty internet connections, you will be pleased to know that we designed the Purdue Tree Doctor to have all of its critical information and photos on the phone in a modest package size (250 mb) with a modest price.

The Purdue Tree Doctor costs only $1.99 and is available now for the I-Phone, and the I-Pod touch at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/purdue-tree-doctor/id561944017?mt=8

If you download it from the I-tunes store via a web browser you can put it on your I-pad and enjoy the larger pictures and format.  For those of you without phone or data plans, you can buy an I-phone touch and gain access to this information. Currently we are developing the application for Android phones and expect it to be out in January of 2013.

Cliff Sadof and Janna Beckerman, Purdue University

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