 Welcome and these are archived online and I just posted the link to our past webinars. So we try to put all our webinars at one place. You can also watch the virtual farm tours and the Q&A Fridays that we do every two weeks. They're also on the same link and that's in the chat box. So welcome again. This is just going to give you a quick update on some of the vegetable IPM work that is going on around the state. And these are some of the resources that you are probably already familiar with. Please subscribe to the newsletters and these other resources on Twitter and Instagram that are available. Let's see if I can advance my slides. All right, as Alina had already alluded to, non-stop rains is what we have seen this spring. So this cartoon just kind of summarizes my feelings at this point with this non-stop rains where the plots are practically underwater. And it has been incredibly hard to go out and do scouting, spraying. So we are behind in a lot of places where we're doing the work and same is the case in the farmers' fields. And this causes a lot more disease pressure. So I think this is a great year for all the plant pathology friends I have and not so good so far for etymology. But things may change. We are never far away from next drought. And even though we have so much water and there's quite a bit of natural enemy action out there. So you have a lot of the insect pathogens that are active because of the high humidity. Even then we still have these caterpillars that are out there. In fact, the fall armyworm, which is on the picture on the top, incredibly high, almost five times higher pressure this year than last year this time. And the beet armyworms are just catching up. You'll see these numbers, updated numbers in a blog article that is being posted soon. I'll send an email out to the teams and also post it on Facebook. Once the blog article comes out, that will have the numbers. The top row are the armyworms and these armyworms, they lay eggs in bunches. So you will see them laying eggs on the top parts of the soft leaves on the underside. And then we have these other insects like the tomato fruitperm, hornworm, loopers. And these insects, they lay eggs individually. So these are the updated numbers for the different moths. Again, fall armyworms are almost five times higher than the normal. And the beet armyworms and southern armyworms are now catching up. So all these armyworms are active at once, except perhaps the yellow striped armyworm. You may see more of that near the Gulf Coast areas around mobile involvement countries. And then the loopers are increasing. So even loopers typically are later season past. The fruitworms pretty high also, not so much budworms this year. And again, these traps are on commercial farms as well as research locations with multiple crops. Vine borders have been very, very active as well. And as I have noted on many of the Facebook social media posts, a lot of wine border activity this year. So talking about vine border, it does get confusing with all these, with all the different insects that are out there. Oops, all the different borers that are out there. For example, pickle worms that typically are on the fruits, on the flowers and squash and cucumbers. We see the vine border slay eggs, the adult slay eggs right at the base of the plant. And then there's that big fat larva inside the stem and melon worms. Melon worms can be anywhere on the stem as well as on the leaves and fruits. And you will see some webbing. So just like spider webs, you may see some webbing and then multiple caterpillars feeding on the fruits, on the leaves. So by putting them aside by side, you may see some differences. And again, the squash vine border is a day-flying moth, unlike the others. When we talk about control, this is how I always try to segment the IPM plan, how you should plan something. For example, if you're open field crop, and especially if you want to be organic and looking for some organic recommendations, then trap cropping is a really good way of getting the leaf or bugs, sting bugs away from your main crop. We are using Hubbard squash this year as a trap crop. Again, the rains have affected the quality of the crop because of disease. And then, of course, bioinsecticide is common to all of these approaches. Some of the papers I have and the videos on the Farming Basics app on permanent pest exclusion system. We call it the high tunnel pest exclusion, HTPE for short. It's a really neat and low cost system for keeping moths and large insects away. And then we have the, for small farms market gardens, we have the temporary pest exclusion system, which includes the fixed frame systems where you put the fabric, for example, superlite insect barrier or protect net over the top of the plants in the ground and you don't move those frames. Those frames are fixed in the ground, but you can also have movable systems. You see a little picture there of one of the systems. There's some less sophisticated ones that you can see some videos online from some of the gardening websites. But these are essentially how I think of some of the approaches to IPM that may work for you. Again, you may not depend on just one. You may have to mix them to get the best effect and also conserve or augment natural enemies, especially with the pest exclusion systems to keep the bugs away, but you can also introduce beneficial insects underneath them if you need to. With these low cost systems, like the temporary system, remember to put the fabric on as soon as you transplant or as soon as the plants are up. If you wait too long, we have found out even one week delay can have army worm eggs on or horn worm eggs on the tomatoes. So they're really fast in finding the plants. So you have to install these systems really quickly. Gardeners often ask me, what are my top five organic insecticides? And here's the big list. So we have the BTs, which are really good for caterpillars. And the one that I use very frequently is Zantari. It's on your screen on the top with the X. That's Zantari for army worms, especially. Then you have Pyganic, which is 5% Pyganic. Spinosid is the other good insecticide for soft-bodied insects and caterpillars. Again, these insecticides are best when the insects are small or low in numbers. If you have large caterpillars, these insecticides will struggle. Neem oil, we get kind of mixed results with neem oil. It does get help if you add something to neem. So for example, you can add BT or some other insecticide and use neem oil. And they often act synergistically. Insect-style soap is a kind of a low-persistent product. It does not do very well in our research plots in open field. But there are people who really like insect-style soap. And then there are new insecticide premixes in the market. The one thing I've left out from this list is the abrasive insecticides like diatomaceous earth that is also used by a lot of these small farmers. And those products are very abrasive and low persistence. The rains will wash them out. I like to use some of the liquids and then apply them thoroughly. So just a quick rundown of some of the major insects or insect groups. And some of the ideas I have on how to, what you can use. For example, in case of aphids, we have tried okra as a trap crop, although that's an expensive trap crop to maintain. But the insect barriers work really well. Reflective mulch works really well. And you will see them in published literature. And then we have organic insecticides like soap, by organic, any of the oils will work to smother them and then release or protect the insect predators. That's very important in case of aphids. So especially for conventional farmers, it's very important. There are, if you're a conventional farmer, there are very selective products now in the market that only knock out aphids. And they are very effective. And I highly recommend them. Thrips, again, try to grow resistant varieties. It's very important because the tomato spotted wilt virus is still very active. It's still very common to find it with high thrips pressure. Remove the virus infected plants. There is no antivirus weed control. Very important for both aphids and thrips is control weeds around your farm. Reflective mulches work on a limited scale, especially when the plants are small. And then there's products like spinos said that I've already mentioned. And requiem is one of the other products that are effective for thrips and approved for organic production. Caterpillars are one of the best ways we can, we can control them or manage them is with the best exclusion fabric. And we know we can do that in the high tunnels or using the light fabric. And then using insecticides like BT, BT really works well for leaf resting bugs. Again, a pest exclusion or trap cropping really works. We are, we always use trap crops in our research fields. It takes the pressure off. It does not solve everything, but it takes the pressure away from the main crop like tomatoes. And again, organic insecticides are difficult. They are difficult to control. The adults are very difficult target the immatures. And same with the squash bugs. A lot of the complaints I've seen is if you try to kill adult squash bugs, very difficult to kill them. And again, talking about cucumbers, I have these three levels that are mentioned the way I approach it. We are using the Baby Blue and New England Hubbard in a mixed trap crop system. The problem with trap crops is space and you have to learn to manage it. So it is a management step, but it's totally worth it for for insect control on especially small farms. And you can do the insecticide treatments on the trap crop and save insecticide on the main crop. So you don't have to spray the entire main crop. The pest exclusion system is really effective, especially with the high tunnel pest exclusion system using 50% shade cloth. It really cuts down your moth numbers by over 50, 60% and that's a huge relief. And then there are several organic options for insecticides. And conventionally these many of these cucumber pests are not difficult to control. So that's a good thing. We have a lot of options for conventional fire ants. I'm not an expert on fire ants, but I do try them in different places. And here is a list of insecticides that are available. Not all of them are organic. So if you're not organic, then you have more options. But overall the bait insecticides are better than drenches. And that's for a fact I have consulted my friends were experts on fire ants. And this is what they've always recommended and make sure the fire ants are active so that they take up the bait. And then these are some of the products with different insecticides. They're all slow acting, but they do a good job eventually of killing them, killing the ants. And one thing I left out was snails and slugs this year. They have been very active. There is a blog article on snails and slugs. The major snail species is succinia species. These are the big snails that you will see and they're being washed out because of rain. And there are products like that have iron phosphate and diatomaceous earth that temporarily help in controlling slugs and snails. They wash out. That's the problem with rains, constant rains, they wash out and they keep coming, the slugs keep coming. But look into that blog article if you're interested. And remember to check your sprayers. Get good quality sprayers that are made up of, made from good materials that are leak proof, especially the nozzles. So enable your sprayer with insecticide. Don't try to mix too many insecticides if you don't know. The solution may become very hot and can cause plant burn. Also when you're using products like neem oil, if you spray in the heat of the day, it can do plant damage. And I've been trying some of the battery operator sprayers. Like them, they do have small capacity so you cannot do a whole bunch, but they give you a pretty uniform spray pattern. And that's really good even with the plastic nozzles like the one you see on the picture. And they're fairly inexpensive. When you spray, try to go bottom up spray from the bottom going to top and leave the residue, let the insecticide be on the top leaves but deposit most of it on the bottom leaves. That's where your insects are hiding. That also helps to keep the insecticide from shade, from sun, keeping it shade and it increases the persistence of some of the products. So spray pattern is very important, pay attention to your equipment and change the nozzles as often as needed. If you want to see some of the detailed videos, I have several on different topics on the Alma beginning farmer playlist on YouTube. Please search it up. You'll enjoy a lot of these other topics that may be useful. Overall, just remember that press prevention is better than cure. And manage the insects when they're small and low in numbers. I think that's the biggest challenge that I'm facing in this wet weather is trying to be out there and trying to spray timely. And it is a challenge in this kind of weather, and then protect the natural enemies don't spray when the insects seem to be under control. Don't try to do preventive spraying that just increases our resistance and kills some natural enemies. And then make sure you use these resources that are on the screen. These are for you and contact your regional extension agent. If you're watching the video recording, contact your extension agent and stay in touch with them. I think they're the best friend you have in the communities and then reach out to any of us.