Holly Greenberg - Week 6

 This was another very exciting week full of new opportunities. I can feel my independence growing as every week passes. I feel more capable of working by myself, knowing that I have my mentors and coworkers to rely on. 

Monday began with a trip to Clear Ridge Nursery, a wholesale grower. Over the last many weeks, Laura and Suzanne have been visiting every week to monitor the pests damaging the growing dahlias. To enact control, a row of beans was planted beside the dahlias, acting as a trap crop since many flower pests are the same as vegetable pests. Active monitoring is done by counting the number of tarnished plant bugs and cucumber beetles found on sticky sheets placed next to pheromone traps. This data will be used to determine if the beans are an effective way of keeping pests off cut flowers. While there, I was able to watch Kirk Floyd of KDrone operate a drone spraying a patch of trees. It was amazing to see how quickly and precisely the drone was able to target the trees. 

This is me preparing the labels to keep the double-sided tape organized.

On Tuesday, we went to Rockville to water the native flower sod and remove the double-sided tape to count CMBS crawlers. After counting and seeing very few crawlers, it was determined that new tapes would not be put up the next day. Removing the tape damages the bark of the trees, so we decided to track the scale growth differently. In the future, we will be using a paint marker to mark the end of the scale on the branch and assess if it continues to move outwards as it grows over the next few months. On Wednesday, we traveled back to Rockville for the first data collection on the Crape Myrtles, which included tree phenology and insect counts.  The trees were in bloom and had many insects, but the sod did not have many. This can be attributed to the small size and establishment of the sod. In the afternoon, I spent time writing a piece on the Twenty-spotted Lady Beetle for the weekly Nursery and Landscape IPM Report. This was a great experience in strengthening my technical writing and research skills. 

This is one of the Crape Myrtles in Rockville with native flower sod growing underneath. 

On Thursday, I headed back to Western MD to look for Box Tree Moth. I found multiple larvae of different instars, indicating that it is time to treat. Many of the larvae were surrounded by webbing and frass, making them easy to identify on the Boxwoods. The caterpillars will soon pupate, and not long after, the adults will emerge and lay the next generation of eggs. 

This is one of the later instars of BTM found this week in Washington County, MD. 

This week was the most routine-oriented so far. I enjoy the many events and travel, but a calm week to catch up on work is good too! I am looking forward to what next week brings.