Gophers and Answers

In East Texas we are under attack by underground forces! Not terrorists, at least not in the normal sense of the word. These guys are attacking lawns, gardens and landscapes. Pocket gopher populations must be pretty large right now, and I thought I would offer some links to resources on the subject. For information, there is a new page up at: TexPest and the new FAQ page on the same site. You will find what you need to know, or where to find it there. Happy hunting!

Will Your Home Be Green?

There is an awful lot of talk these days about building "green" homes. Using environmentally friendly materials, using materials that are made from renewable resources, using energy efficient appliances, and providing the home with alternate sources of energy.

We all want to be more green in 2008, and green building is important in that regard, green pest control is also important. Why not use them both, at the same time?

Green Building

Is your new home built with green pest control in mind? Prevention is the best form of pest control. There is a lot you can do to protect your home from pest invasion.

Bugs and Weeds

If you are looking for a place to get information about controlling bugs and weeds on your property, take a peak at bugsandweeds.com. It has a lot of information on preventing pests, and keeping them out of your home. Give it a look, you might just be able to lower your pesticide use!

Fighting the Exotic Aquatic Aliens: Caution!!

Every weapon for fighting exotic vegetative pests, has a down side. Biological weapons are difficult to control and predict future problems. Chemicals have an environmental downside, but less than most people think. Oddly enough, the most environmentally problematic is neither of the above, it introduces neither chemicals nor biological agents into the system, it is mechanical harvesting.

Mechanical harvesting is a problem because most of the invasive aquatic pests are proficient at vegetative reproduction. If a plant is removed, but the root is left behind, most will re grow readily from the root. They will also grow easily from broken and cut off remnants of plant material, some at a rate of 50% or more. If the plant is broken into pieces, and a hundred pieces are left behind, 50 or more will probably start reproduction!Rather than removing the problem, it has now become a much larger problem.

I have talked with several people who realized this just a little too late. Where they once had a problem over about 10% of the area, it is now covering 60 to 90 percent! That is when my phone starts ringing!

There is a place for mechanical removal, when used against the right type of alien invader, the results are excellent. When the infestation has gone unnoticed for too long, and the only thing that can be done is remove the problem each time it recurs. There are some other valid uses as well.

In dealing with aquatic problems, very often the chemical option is the best of all possible worlds.

Bio Fuels: Avoiding unintended Consequences

One of the many ag news sources I digest (Get it?) recently reported that many dairymen throughout the country are closing down their dairies, selling the cows, and preparing to plant corn and soybeans instead. This is largely due to the fact that dairy work is long, hard and arduous, and the lure of money from the ethanol market seems like a much better gig. It is a shift that can make a lot of sense, but look for it to have an effect on milk, and other dairy prices. This brings me to my point. The ripple effect in economy and environment.

This is often very tricky and unpredictable, particularly with such volatile industries, but it is worth spending a little time in consideration, particularly since it could bring about some unintended consequences, and perhaps, some inconvenient truths.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the movement away from fossil fuels, and toward bio fuels. I like the idea of growing our fuels. It would be great for the environment, at least to a point. Let me explain my concern.

If in the process of raising the raw materials for this change, we can avoid creating new environmental problems, it will be not only great, but bordering on the miraculous! One of the things we will need to deal with is the question of erosion. The ethanol market will, without a doubt, draw many people into farming, most of whom will have little interest in maintaining environmental integrity. Can we accomplish this without producing a new "dust bowl?"

What if we find that production will be insufficient for our needs due to drought or flooding, after we have become dependent on these new methods? Will we then turn to methanol production and suffer the effects of billions of people stripping the forests and pastures in order to drive.

What will happen if so many of our farmers ranchers and dairymen migrate to ethanol production, and away from food production that it affects the prices and availability of food adversely? Great, we have fuel to get to the store, but no food to buy when we get there!

I am not saying that bio fuels are not the answer. When coupled with other technologies and innovations, including solar technology, storage cell improvements, better ways to harness wind and kinetic energy, more efficient power generation and application, hydrogen power, and many others, all working in tandem, great progress can be made. We need to make sure that we do not put all our eggs in one basket, as we seemingly have done with fossil fuels. We also need to make sure that we are prepared to deal with the different set of consequences that are possible with any emerging technology.

James Burns is a licensed pest control professional, has been a Certified Professional Turfgrass Manager for more than 16 years, has a lifetime of experience in horticulture and agriculture, and is the owner of Rational Environmental Solutions, an IPM based pest control company in East Texas. He also has many helpful gardening tips at http://www.texpest.com, and writes on environmental and social issues from Rational Environmental Solutions

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_F._Burns

Alien Pests, Alien Solutions??

We have had more than sufficient rainfall in the area this year, after a long stretch of drought, and it has given rise to all the attendant features of such weather events. I had talked with some of my fellow horticulturists, and arborists about a year and a half ago about what we could expect from trees after a long drought and when the drought was over. I am sorry to say that my predictions were accurate. When winter rolls around we can expect more problems if it turns out the least bit icy.

The extra rainfall has also caused other problems, as should be expected, but I hadn't thought about this one.

The local media carried a story about people reporting seeing Asian grass carp (a type of fish used to control vegetation, particularly hydrilla verticillata) going over the spillway at Lake Tyler East, a lake in the East Texas area.

This brings up a number of issues. Let me start by saying that no grass carp have been introduced into this lake. At least not officially. According to the parks and wildlife folks, no grass carp were allowed in the lake at this time because there is no barrier to prevent their escape. I should mention here, that these fish are sterile, and therefore pose no threat in the area of reproduction. These are the logical extensions:

1. What the people saw was another type of fish.
2. What the people saw was indeed a grass carp.
If what they saw was grass carp, I have another extension:

1.They have somehow been introduced into the waters unofficially.

At this time, I don't believe that the sighting was more than misidentification.

This however, does bring to light a potential problem in our integrated pest management programs. When we have a non native pest problem, one of the ways we handle the problem is by introducing one of the pests natural enemies to defeat it. This often works well. The question in the back of the minds of most thinking people is: Will this new species, introduced to control the other non indigenous species present it's own problems? In most cases the answer is no, at least not that we see yet. However, the question that we should be asking, is will it be a problem in the future, when we have slight environmental changes brought on by changing weather patterns or other shifts in our eco systems? There have been a number of plants brought into our country by well meaning people who were seeking to solve problems by this introduction. Jonson grass, and kudzu were both seen as being answers to a problem. Both got out of control, posing more problems than solutions. In the case of kudzu, the problems began when it was transfered from the area of introduction into the more viral Southern climates, where it has now become known in some circles as the "weed that ate the South."

Now, to the credit of most modern biologists, the new species being introduced to control the other invaders have been thoroughly researched, and are, in most cases of which I am aware, sterilized, so that the risk is kept at a minimum. This does not however, mean that mistakes are not possible, or conditions will not change in the future.

Some things you can do:
1. Don't become a part of the problem. Make sure that what you cultivate is not an invader. There are many free resources for finding out about invasive species on the internet.
2. Don't deliberately cultivate an alien pest. I have heard stories that I sincerely hope are not true of some fishing enthusiasts who have deliberately introduced hydrilla into areas where they fish, to provide extra cover for bass. This is both illegal, and posses threats to the environment beyond your wildest dreams.
3. Make sure that you are not introducing aliens by accident. Always check things like boat props and live wells before leaving an infested area. Check pets that have been hiking with you in areas where noxious weeds exist, to make sure that their fur does not contain any hitchhikers, that might eventualy eat your yard.
These are just a few precautionary methods you can use, I am sure you can make other logical extensions.

In light of the potential problems that introducing biological controls might cause, we should, of course, proceed cautiously with the process, chemical control becomes more important, and prevention should be the foundation on which any good IPM program is built.

For more details on non native, invasive pests, and noxious weeds and their treatments, see TEXPEST

An Aquatic Note

Once in a while, everything just works right! I went back to take a look at a lake where I had done several treatments for invasive plant life. I have always had that little twinge of doubt as to whether a treatment works as it should, and it makes me extra cautious, and a little nervous, until I see the results I am looking for. It might help to know, that I have been working with nature in a similar capacity all my life, and the twinge never goes away, even though it invariably has a positive result.

I talked with a gentleman who had been fishing the lake, and he said that everything had been working well. He proceeded to tell me that when he went there early one morning that the frogs were croaking, the birds were chirping, and the fish were biting and putting up a good fight. That was truly music to my ears!
Texpest