Vigilance is Key to Preventing Tick Bites
An Iowa State University entomologist discusses strategies for avoiding ticks and the diseases they spread.
An Iowa State University entomologist discusses strategies for avoiding ticks and the diseases they spread.
Bothered by small black bugs this fall? Learn more about what these bugs are and how to control them.
There have been reports of potato leafhopper in Iowa alfalfa, and it's time to think about assessing alfalfa stands. Potato leafhoppers do not overwinter in Iowa, but they are persistent alfalfa pests every growing season. Storms along the Gulf of Mexico bring adult potato leafhoppers north and drop into fields every spring.
hereLet there be no mistaking it, bats are important. And, in light of a long history of changes to forest habitats, new emerging pressures associated with energy development and an exotic disease-causing fungus that’s been wreaking unprecedented havoc on eastern populations in the last decade, many of Iowa’s bats are in trouble.
Accidental invaders are insects that inadvertently enter homes and buildings from the surrounding landscape. Many species are troublesome during late summer and fall as they move to protected locations to spend the winter.
Nearly half of Iowa farmers say in a recent Iowa Farm and Rural Life Poll that they are willing to plant monarch breeding habitat but are unsure how much land or money they would invest in the effort.
Ticks are active from March through November, the same months that host the most outdoor activities. Understanding the different types of ticks that are found in the state and how to remove ticks if they become attached to a human or domestic animal is the focus of a new Iowa State University Extension and Outreach publication titled ‘Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases in Iowa’ (PM 2036).
A very small, metallic green beetle is moving/being moved across Iowa and is destroying ash trees in its wake. More than twenty counties are now considered infested by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and this count is expected to increase in the coming year. This article helps acreage owners identify ash trees and signs to look for in an infestation.