After 4 weeks monitoring for Prionus beetles adults in NC, my crew that found this morning our first pupae ever and the first female catch of the season (shown in the video below). We will continue to monitor for this emerging pest in blueberries until October, so stay tuned!

Gave a field lecture today with Clyde Sorenson as part of the 25 Ag Pest Practicum Course. Visit my tobacco plots at Kinston with 8 grad students and talking all morning about insect pests and TSWV. Found all kinds of pests: aphids, stink bugs, corn earworm, and grasshoppers

Recent newsletter article about my program's work with Prionus beetles in NC blueberries. This monitoring program is successful thanks to the close collaboration with NC Extension agents portcitydaily.com/local-news/env…

Good field meeting today with Extension agents and blueberry growers to demonstrate how to check blueberry bushes for Prionus beetle infestation. Uprooted multiple bushes and got rained down at the end. It was a good and productive day! 🙂🫐🐛

Last week, 40 high schoolers learned about insect pests in strawberries and peppers and Prionus beetles in blueberries during the Horticultural Science Summer Institute at our NCSU Horticulture Department. They had the opportunity to see the pests first hand!

Today the Tobacco Field Day at the Oxford Research Station, hosted 100+ attendees and our Tobacco team (agronomist, breeder, plant pathologist, and entomologist) presented their work to growers, agents, and industry reps.

Back to back strawberry presentations yesterday and today the 2 strawberry pre-plant meetings. We had also a great strawberry disease update from our plant pathologist Caleb Bollenbacher and Bill Cline 🍓

Curious about careers in entomology education beyond the classroom or tenure track? Join us August 26 for a dynamic ESA webinar exploring career paths from K–12 teaching and extension to zoos, museums, government outreach, and edu-tainment. Register: buff.ly/qfJwr6R

Today was the last of 3 preplant strawberry meetings in the last 10 days. Growers are getting ready to put plants in the ground and our NCSU strawberry team, including me, are helping them refresh all the management methods available against insect and mite pests and diseases 🍓

🌱 Great time at Discover the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative day! Shared our lab projects, saw amazing PSI work, caught up with NC State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences colleagues, and met PSI’s biggest supporters 😁 Kelly J. Avila Mariana Prieto Torres Sarah Cochran-Murray Carlos Morales The American Phytopathological Society APS Graduate Student Committee APS SouthernDivision FFAR Fellows Program

Getting ready to start a miticide trial soon against spider mites under greenhouse-grown peppers. Looking forward to test the efficacy of a few products for future use in peppers culture 🫑🌶

Dr. Max Scott (NCSU entomologist) discusses the significant threat posed by screw worms, a parasitic insect that lays eggs in live animals, leading to severe economic and health impacts on livestock. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bio…

Strawberries in the ground today! We will have three strawberry trials this year, two at the Research Station in Castle Hayne and one at a commercial farm. We will monitor for spider mites, thrips, and sap beetles. I'm getting excited about this strawberry season 🍓

Our biggest ever collected Prionus larvae, almost 3.5 in long and more than 9 grams in weight. This guy was extracted from an uprooted highbush blueberry plant at a commercial from in Sampson County, NC last week 🫐🐛

My program is now working with tea as an emerging crop in NC. Tea farmers in the southeast are establishing tea plantings and are in need or pest management reccomendations. We have established a tea planting and will be monitoring for pests during its early establishment 🍵

Today, we visited our tea field at Clinton and they have tons of open flowers. Many bees, flies, and beetles were visiting the flowers attracted by their strong, sweet smell. Here is a cool video of one of the many pollinators we found in these tea flowers 🌸🏵🌼

Last week, I contributed as a speaker for the first time in the Southeastern Professionals Fruit Workers Conference. This year, it was held at Mills River, NC, where a grad student competition was held and many specialists conducting research on fruit crops

In strawberries, achene size can reveal the cause of fruit deformities. Poor pollination leaves small achenes where fertilization failed, while tarnished plant bug feeding causes enlarged achenes. Though once rare in North Carolina, they are showing up in high tunnels this fall

Colombia representing at the 2025 ESA Meeting in Portland, OR!! Very happy to see one of our extraordinary colombian scientists making our people and our country proud with her work on bee ecology and evolution at Penn State 🇨🇴

Every year this 2nd week of November, I'm back to back presenting first at ESA and right after at The Strawberry Expo. This year the Strawberry Expo was held at Raleigh where lots of growers and specialists gathered to discuss main topics on research and strawberry production