I hope you are all sitting with your feet up – briefly – until the scouting etc. season starts.

Or maybe now you are ready to get out there and get started for this year. The weather at the beginning of the week might have helped. But it was also warm enough that ticks were out questing. NYS IPM’s Joellen Lampman posted on our blog with lots of useful tick information

It’s also time to start planning . . .
WPS training requirements have changed. Be sure you know what is required in terms of who can do the training and how it must be presented. Lots of resources are available from the Pesticide Educational Resources Collaborative including the appropriate training videos

Don’t forget to sign up for Branching Out  There’s a clickable subscription form and more information.

And you can contact Sarah Pickel to get on her scouting email list from PA at c-sapickel@pa.gov (Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture | Bureau of Plant Industry, 2301 North Cameron Street | Hbg PA 17110, Phone: 717.772.5227 | Fax: 717.705.6518)

We are planning, too. Brian and Amara have been planning our new Christmas tree and beneficial insect habitat demonstration trials. They got the soil samples before the snow started again.