Tag Archives: EPN

Announcements

Include biocontrol in your 2022 garden plans

Graphic of flowering plants and beneficial insects with the words Biological Control: Partners in the Garden March 15 and 16, 2022
Join us for this virtual conference!

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get some seeds into potting mix and some plans for my garden on paper! While you’re planning your garden, why not join NYS IPM for our virtual conference? This year we’re talking about “Biological Control: Partners in the Garden” and we’ve got a great line up of speakers!

  • Carol Glenister form IPM Labs talks about looking for signs that natural enemies (biocontrol agents) are already at work in your garden
  • John Losey from Cornell University talks about everyone’s favorite biocontrol agent – ladybugs
  • NYS IPM staff will talk about biocontrol for weeds (is there any?), conserving our biocontrol partners in the garden, and more!
  • Mary Centrella from the Cornell Pesticide Safety Education Program will talk about proper use of pesticides to protect garden partners
  • Kyle Wickings will talk about using tiny worms (entomopathogenic nematodes) to deal with lawn grubs

The conference will take place the mornings of Tuesday and Wednesday March 15 and 16, with a special interactive workshop being offered (by yours truly) on Tuesday afternoon (1-3 PM). You’ll receive some pre-workshop materials to help you get the most out of the workshop, and leave with a plan to plant flowers that will feed and support natural enemies in your garden.

The conference is just a little more than a week away, so register soon! Pay what you can afford, and please reach out if the registration fee is a barrier. NYS IPM is committed to making this conference (and all of our resources) accessible.

This post was written by Amara Dunn, Biocontrol Specialist with the NYSIPM program.

agriculture

EPNs: Good worms

light brown dead grub in a petri dish broken open and surrounded by hundreds of tiny, white, crescent-shaped nematodes
Insect-killing nematodes (tiny white crescent) emerging from a dead insect larva. Photo credit: Peggy Greb, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Bugwood.org

Nematodes are tiny worms. While some of them can damage plants, some prefer to eat insects, and these “good worms” (entomopathogenic nematodes is the technical term, but we can call them EPNs for short) can be helpful biocontrol agents. Teresa Rusinek (Cornell Cooperative Extension eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program) wrote a guest blog post about her work testing EPNs for control of wireworms in sweet potatoes. Elson Shields (Cornell Entomology) has spent many years perfecting the use of persistent EPNs that are native to New York in agricultural fields where they control insect pests. Kyle Wickings is my go-to expert on using EPNs to manage white grubs in turf. A former graduate student in Kyle’s lab (Max Helmberger) made an amazing video describing the life cycle of EPNs. John Sanderson is the Cornell guru of greenhouse biocontrol (including EPNs for greenhouse insect pests).

So many people have developed so many great materials on EPNs, the purpose of this post is to point you to some of these great resources. Why re-invent the wheel? And if I’ve missed something, please let me know!

John Sanderson (Cornell University) has done some great work evaluating different EPN species for controlling insect pests in greenhouses. You can watch a webinar summarizing this work here.

Carol Glenister (IPM Laboratories) and Elson Shields (Cornell University) did a presentation on “Getting the Most Out of Beneficial Nematodes in Organic Production” for the UMass Amherst Extension Vegetable Program. You can watch the recording on YouTube, and you can read their answers to frequently asked questions online.

Screen shot of Grub ID homepage including the url: grubid.cals.cornell.edu
Proper identification is essential to good IPM, and Kyle Wickings’ Grub ID key helps you do just that.

Need help identifying your white grubs (a critical first step to using EPNs effectively in your lawn)? Kyle Wickings developed a simple key.

Are you concerned about grub damage in your home lawn? Put back that pesticide bottle, and start by scouting and identifying grubs, then apply some EPNs (only if you need them). You can find all the details here.

white grub on soil with a few grass plants nearby
Count how many white grubs you actually have per square foot (and identify them) before deciding if an EPN application would help.

If you are growing alfalfa, Elson Shield’s lab has all the information you need to successfully use EPNs to control alfalfa snout beetles, starting with an overview, and including detailed resources to help you be successful.

Wondering if EPNs can help you control fruit and vegetable insect pests? In consultation with my colleagues, I developed a summary of what we know about which fruit, vegetable, and ornamental pests you are likely to be able to manage with EPNs. More research is ongoing, so this list will continue to evolve.

This work is supported by NYS Departments of Environmental Conservation and Agriculture and Markets.

This post was written by Amara Dunn, Biocontrol Specialist with the NYSIPM program, but was only possible due to the great work done by colleagues. All images are Amara’s, unless otherwise noted.

agriculture, IPM, vegetables

Wireworm Biocontrol Update – contributed by Teresa Rusinek

A lot of great people are doing great work with biocontrols. So this month I’m featuring an update from an exciting project happening in Eastern NY testing a potential biocontrol solution to wireworms in sweet potatoes. Thank you to Teresa Rusinek (Cornell Cooperative Extension Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Program) for writing this post! I will definitely be following this project as results from 2018 come in. Check back for future updates!

sweet potatoes with wireworm damage
Sweet Potato with wireworm damage from EPN biocontrol trial (Photo credit: Teresa Rusinek)

Professor Elson Shields and Research Specialist Tony Testa of Cornell Dept. of Entomology, have been working with NY native entomopathogenic (insect attacking) nematodes (EPNs) for the past 20 years. Initially, the EPN biocontrol systems were developed to protect alfalfa crops from the destructive snout beetle. This system has been highly successful, over 150 alfalfa fields in NY alone have been inoculated. EPNs have been proven to persist in the soil years after application. They require 2-4 years for full effectiveness determined by the application method.

Cornell Cooperative Extension, Eastern NY Commercial Horticulture Educators Teresa Rusinek  and Charles Bornt have been working with Shields and Testa on a multi-year research project at the HV Farm Hub to test the efficacy of NY Native EPNs in the suppression of wireworms which are increasingly damaging to various crops, especially roots crops, grown in the Hudson Valley.

wax worms infected with EPNs used to inoculate a field
Entomopathogenic nematodes are reared in wax worm hosts and strained into a solution that is applied to the soil. (Photo credit: Teresa Rusinek)

Our project began in May of 2017 at the Farm Hub, where we established research plots in a field where wireworms were found in large numbers. Four control plots had no EPNs applied, four plots were treated with both Steinernema carpocapsae (Sc) and Steinernema feltiae (Sf) nematodes, and the final four plots were treated with Sf and Heterohabditis bacteriophora (Hb) nematodes. Each EPN species occupies a different depth in the soil and has somewhat different modes of action. This research will determine which nematodes species are best adapted to establish in the field as well as which combination of nematodes is most effective at suppressing wireworms.

Results from our harvest evaluation from last year look very promising. 200 sweet potatoes were harvested from each plot on Sept. 26, 2017 and scored for wireworm damage. EPN treated plots overall had 36% less wireworm damage than the untreated control plots. In addition, soil core bioassays taken earlier this spring show that the EPNs, Sf in particular, have well-established and overwintered in the treated plots. We have not yet harvested and evaluated the sweet potatoes from this growing season.