UC Weed Science

You just KNOW that some plants are considered weeds. Their common names give them away. They sound awful. Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum). Ripgut brome (Bromus diandrus). Devil's claw (Proboscidea lutea). Smellmelon (Cucumis melo). Itchgrass (Rottboellia cochinchinensis).

The environmental conditions under which parental plants are grown can affect the progeny population in many ways.

Over the years of Kerb use in lettuce (more like decades) there has been a lot of work on application methods. Our transplanted lettuce in southern California is usually grown on drip and when possible, we like to apply all things through it.

With the rainfall we've been having every month in Southern California, there are a lot of weeds out there. For those who work in wildland management where rain is the only source of irrigation, in Southern California the growing season started in October.

Diamondback moth (DBM) is a persistent pest in the Salinas-Castroville area. We were able to find late instar caterpillars in several spots along Blackie road on Tuesday, January 22nd. Basically, these caterpillars were feeding on brassica weeds, located along the side of the road (Fig. 1).