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Another Drought Hiker?
Just when you thought you had seen as much citrus infestation as you were likely to seek, in comes Jane Delahoyde, a Pest Control Advisor in Ventura with some lace bugs on lemons. Lace bugs are pretty specific to a host species. So there is avocado lace bug that goes to avocados (and camphor which is somewhat related). There is alder lace bug that goes to alder. Birch lace bug that goes to ………….birch, and so on. There are a lot of native lace bugs that go to native plant species like ceanothus, toyon and sycamore. Over a dozen species of lace bugs (family Tingidae) occur in California. Each feed on one or a few closely related plant species. Hosts include alder, ash, avocado, coyote brush, birch, ceanothus, photinia, poplar, sycamore, toyon, and willow.
Adult lace bugs are about 1/8 inch (3 mm) long with an elaborately sculptured dorsal (upper) surface. The expanded surfaces of their thorax and forewings have numerous, semitransparent cells that give the body a lacelike appearance, hence the name "lace bugs." The wingless nymphs are smaller, oval, and usually dark colored with spines. Adults and nymphs occur together in groups on the underside of leaves.
Native species named after their host plants include the California Christmas berry tingid (Corythucha incurvata), ceanothus tingid (Corythucha obliqua), and western sycamore lace bug (Corythucha confraterna). The introduced avocado lace bug (Pseudacysta perseae) is a pest of avocado (Persea americana) and camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora).
Adult lace bugs are about 1/8 inch long with an elaborately sculptured thorax and forewings that form an expanded cover over their body. The adult thorax and forewings have tiny clear cells that form a lacelike covering, hence the name "lace bugs." Many lace bugs are multicolored with a distinctive, species-specific pattern of a dark, pale, and clear lacelike areas. The wingless nymphs are smaller, oval, and commonly have body spines. Adults and nymphs occur together in groups on the underside of leaves.
Lace bug adults and nymphs feed on the underside of leaves by sucking fluids from plants' photosynthetic tissues. This causes pale stippling and bleaching that can become very obvious on the upper leaf surface by mid to late summer. Adults and nymphs also foul leaves with specks of dark, varnishlike excrement; and this excrement sometimes drips onto pavement and other surfaces beneath infested plants. Certain other true bugs and thrips also produce leaf stippling and dark excrement. Mites also stipple leaves. Mite infestations usually can be distinguished by the absence of dark excrement and sometimes by the presence of mite cast skins and fine silken webbing. Examine the lower leaf surface, using a magnifying lens if necessary, to identify what type of pest is causing the damage.
Lace bug feeding is not a serious threat to plant health or survival. Prolonged high populations of lace bugs may cause premature drop of some leaves and a modest reduction in plant growth rate. On avocado premature leaf drop may lead to sunburn of some fruit and a subsequent reduction in fruit yield.
So are these lace bugs just looking for somewhere to feed when the hillsides have dried up? Are they a new species? Fortunately they don't cause much damage, and in our spraying to control Asian Citrus Psyllid, the lace bug will be controlled, as well. Keep your eyes open for it.
For more about the insect: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7428.html
Lace bug and damage
Lace bugs and excrement
lace bugs and damage
sycamore lace bug01
Entomological Assocation of S. California Meeting in December
The event includes other agricultural professionals and UC experts that will provide updates on pests, research and compliance issues.
Date: Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Time: 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
Location:
Los Angeles County Arboetum and Botanic Garden
301 N. Baldwin Ave.
Arcadia, CA 91007
Registration at the door.
Contact: Jim Downer, 805-645-1458
Learn more about the Entomological Association of Southern California here.
Meeting Agenda
Could you please pass me the bug kabobs?
Possibly, people could be divided into the following two groups: those who knowingly eat insects, and those who think they have never eaten them. Since I am still assailed by the odd nightmare in which I am bringing to my lips a well-cooked bug that suddenly springs to life, I decided to tackle my bug-food phobia by visiting entomologist Douglas Yanega of UC Riverside last week.
Yanega has eaten insects, even relished them. With no difficulty whatsoever he has ingested honey bees, termites, mealworms, crickets, grasshoppers, ants, June beetles, silkworms and even scorpions.
“These admittedly were not very tasty,” said Yanega, who is the senior museum scientist in the Entomology Research Museum, where he studies, identifies and catalogs insects. “In Thailand, however, I had queen weaver ants — a gourmet food there that tastes like either peanut butter or lemon, depending on which body part you’ve sunk your teeth into — and deep-fried mole crickets. Both were delicious!”
Eating insects is not unusual in Thailand, Yanega explained. Insects, a good source of highly digestible protein, are part of the diet in Korea, China and Mexico as well.
“You get more bang for the buck when you eat insects, where protein is concerned,” Yanega said. “True, the outer hardened shell is often not digestible, but the softer, internal tissues are. Of course, you want to avoid toxic insects. There are some that could kill you if you ate them.”
How does one know if an insect is toxic? In general, herbivorous insects tend to be more edible. Moreover, insects have evolved to alert other critters — and us! — that they are not suitable for consumption. Bright colors like red, orange or yellow juxtaposed with black on insect bodies are a sure warning from insects that you’d better stay away.
“Think of monarch butterflies, ladybird beetles, tiger moths. You never want to eat them,” Yanega said. “Some tiger moths will even make a noise to warn you to stay away. Other bugs will defensively ooze nasty secretions in your mouth, the moment you bite, to force you to spit them out and free them.”
Because few people experiment with eating insects, identifying those that are both edible and delicious can be a big challenge.
“You have, in the middle of the bell curve of insects, a whole lot that are edible but taste awful,” Yanega said. “And there are those at one end of the curve that are just toxic. But at the other end of this curve lie the prized ones: these are edible and tasty.”
In the United States, most people are culturally still averse to eating insects. If you travel to Mexico, however, you might eat stinkbugs, sometimes used to flavor food. Farther off, in Japan, you could enjoy wasp grubs and silkworm larvae. In the mainland parts of Southeast Asia, you can savor giant water bugs and mole crickets.
“In Laos, they eat just about any available insect,” Yanega said. “Some insects are eaten raw, sometimes with small parts removed. Other insects are served deep fried or grilled.”
According to Yanega, one way to get introduced to an entomological diet is to first dry out insects, and then grind them up to a powder.
“You can use this powder as a supplement,” he said. “It’s the easiest way to go about eating insects as food. You can mix the powder into, say, wheat flour to get 'insect-enriched flour.'
If you’re cringing, rest assured that most of us already eat insects unknowingly. Much of food coloring uses insects. The waxy coloring that coats candies is oftentimes insect-based. And a lot of fresh produce has a built-in level of “insect contamination.”
“As long as you are not allergic to an edible insect, you’re safe eating it,” Yanega said. “If you can get past your phobia or stigma of putting bugs in your mouth, you should have no difficulty in adding insects to your diet.”
Which is what most of us would have to do if we found ourselves stranded on an island and famished.
“Should that happen, never mind the brightly colored bugs,” Yanega said. “Instead, go after the ones that are cryptically colored, the ones that look as though they are hiding from something. They would be a much better bet."
