If you enjoy getting out in the landscape and doing a little detective work, please join several of the UD Cooperative Extension staff on Wednesday evenings for the 2015 UD Horticulture Short Course Series. The “hands on” learning experiences help to pull together classroom, reading, and internet information from the University of Delaware and help everyone to remember clues, symptoms and signs!
Pest walks will be offered at two locations in Delaware during June. A pest walk will be led in Kent County at Delaware State University, on June 17th beginning at 4:00 PM. Meet by the Washington Building and park in the gravel facilities lot across the road. Wear comfortable shoes, insect repellant, and bring a hand lens if you have one. A second pest walk will be led in New Castle County in cooperation with the City of Newark Parks Department, along the James F Hall Trail in Newark, on June 24th at 4:00 PM, rain or shine. Parking will be at the NCC Extension Office on Wyoming Road in Newark. Each pest walk will be led by Brian Kunkel, the UD Cooperative Extension Ornamentals IPM Specialist, and Nancy Gregory, the UD Cooperative Extension Plant Diagnostician. Walks will last about two hours as we look for arthropod pests, beneficial insects, and plant diseases.
For those who may want more detailed information from Brian and Nancy, there will be a Disease and Insect ID Workshop on July 8, 2015 in Townsend Hall on the campus of the University of Delaware. Learn about signs and symptoms the Extension specialists use to identify pests and diseases. Learn tips and techniques using fresh and preserved specimens, hand lenses and microscopes. Bring in samples to be looked at.
Sign up for the UD Horticulture Short Courses in advance or at each event. Pesticide and CNP credits are available, and each class costs $15. To sign up in Kent County: please contact Jan Unflat at 302-730-4000, jmunflat@udel.edu, New Castle: Carrie Murphy, 302-831-2506, cjmurphy@udel.edu , Sussex: Tracy Wootten, 302-856-7303, Wootten@udel.edu. Also check out Cooperative Extension’s Commercial Horticulture and Lawn and Garden page: http://extension.udel.edu/lawngarden/commercial-horticulture/