Growth Spurts

Used coffee grounds are effective at destroying the larvae of mosquitoes carrying dengue, yellow fever, West Nile virus, malaria and other diseases.
Biocontrol Beat reports on the promising research of Hermione Bicudo at Universidade Estadual Paulista in Sao Paulo, Brazil:
“Approximately four full soup spoons of used coffee grounds in a 250 mL glass of water killed [...]

A devastating tropical and subtropical pest, the silverleaf whitefly (Bemisia tabaci), threatens a wide range of crops and is becoming more troublesome.
Of the more than 20 known whitefly biotypes, the most devastating are labeled type B and and type Q. While the B type has been in the U.S. since its discovery in 1985, now [...]

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) entomologist David A. Jenkins has found a low-tech solution for reducing fruit fly infestations in mangoes.
Removing the fruit from the shade of trees appears to reduce fruit fly breeding opportunities.
In a recent study conducted at the ARS Tropical Agricultural Research Station in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, Jenkins and colleagues collected ripe mangoes [...]

Natural bacterial extracts — X. bovienii and P. luminescens (VS) bacterial compounds — offer peach and pecan growers a safe and effective alternative to chemical fungicides in treating diseases such as brown rot in peaches and pecan scab. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Byron, Georgia, developed these natural pesticides to control pecan and [...]

Extracts from tree heartwood limit the growth of Phytophthora ramorum, the microbial agent that causes sudden oak death (SOD) in more than 100 plant species.
Since it surfaced on the West Coast in the mid-1990s, SOD has killed an estimated 1 million oaks and tanoaks. For years, scientists have known that tree heartwood contains protective antimicrobial [...]

Years ago, boll weevils bedeviled cotton growers until a successful large-area eradication program eliminated that problem for most U.S. producers. Now, stink bugs are pestering cotton growers, costing them about 3 percent of their crop each year.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Georgia have been testing the effectiveness of using a combination of trap crops [...]

University of Minnesota scientists are field testing a beneficial insect, a stingless wasp from China also known as Binodoxys communis, that kills soybean aphids.
A successful field test would be a major breakthrough in controlling the damaging crop pest.
Native to China, the soybean aphid (see photo at right) was introduced to the Americas without any of [...]

Researchers at the at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Invasive Plant Research Laboratory in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are testing some promising bugs that could become biological control agents for exotic invasive weeds like hydrilla, Brazilian pepper, Chinese tallow and Australian pine that are plaguing Florida and other U.S. states:

An aquatic moth from Indonesia, Paracymoriza vagalis, [...]

Cowpea plants can indirectly perceive attack from fall armyworms by detecting and responding to degradation products of their own tissues — the first time this ability has been observed in plants, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists.
Previous studies have shown that plants have the ability to indirectly perceive pathogen attacks and protect themselves against [...]

The distribution of diaprepes root weevils (Diaprepes abbreviatus) is constrained by temperature, a key to predicting and limiting the spread of this pest.
Since its arrival in 1964, the diaprepes root weevil has been a major contributor to the decline of Florida’s citrus industry.  The pest’s ability to feed on more than 200 host plant species [...]