The long-awaited Urban Ag IPM (Integrated Pest Management) Workshop was finally here! It was a great pleasure getting the chance to network with some of the urban growers and farmers in NYC, as well as other folks working on interesting projects related to agriculture and food security.
After helping to prepare for the event, I had the chance to share with the audience our research and some of the interesting findings, for instance, the realization of the Green-Blue Long-legged Fly and its potential in controlling thrips and aphids as well as trends in terms of pest population and beneficial predatory insects.
Nevertheless, we continued with insect sampling and survey at John Bowne High School for the last round. We were really surprised to trap quite a large number of ground beetles (one of the beneficial insect groups), in both the pit and pan traps. This wasn’t quite expected and we wondered whether the really hot weather conditions or the vigorous growth of the hedge and native flowery plants around the traps had contributed to the spike in the numbers of ground beetles trapped.
