Browse Ants, Termites, Lice and Other Pests Stories - Page 5

Maxwell Lamptey is visiting America, specifically Griffin, Georgia, in the hopes of learning new methods to fight aflatoxin — a carcinogen produced by soil fungus that can grow on peanuts — in his home country of Ghana.

Every summer, Georgians head to the mountains and forests to escape the heat. Many return home with a few unintended souvenirs—ticks.

A University of Georgia entomologist is asking Georgians to help track an insect that loves to stowaway in homes and has the potential to hurt the state’s cotton and blueberry crops. The brown marmorated stink bug, a native of Asia, was first spotted in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1998 and has since been found in 42 states and two Canadian provinces, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To date, it is classified as a nuisance pest in Georgia, but could quickly become an agricultural pest, too.

Pesticides can be helpful in controlling insects and diseases, but there are chemicals that should be handled with care. To educate pesticide users, University of Georgia Extension has planned pesticide safety and handling classes in Albany, Savannah and Perry this February and March.

As Georgia’s mosquito season draws to a close, mosquito control professionals are looking back, evaluating the season and planning for the challenges they will face next spring.

A widespread soybean pest the past five years, the kudzu bug population in Georgia is much lower this growing season.

The State Botanical Garden of Georgia at the University of Georgia will host the 22nd annual Insect-ival! Family Festival on Sept. 13 from 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in the Visitor Center and Conservatory at the garden in Athens.

Eighty-one-year-old James Cobb finds mowing, raking and baling hay relaxing. Finding his fields infested with tiny armyworms has the opposite effect.

Backyard squash growers may not agree on which variety is best, but they do agree on one thing – squash vine borers are the enemy.

Last month, a Jefferson County woman died and her three grandchildren were sickened after a pesticide, labeled for agricultural use only, was used to kill insects inside their home. Unfortunately, this tragic story now serves as an opportunity for University of Georgia Extension agents like myself to stress the importance of following label instructions on pesticides and other chemicals.