Gardening

PAJARO VALLEY MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 30, 2022 12

SIMPLE SOLUTION Yellow sticky sheets attract and capture pests.

Kate Russell

Sticky barriers save gardens

Capture pests with these small sheets

By KATE RUSSELL

The California Department of Food and Agriculture launched emergency action recently to eradicate oriental fruit flies found in the City of San Jose, declaring the insects a significant threat to the natural environment, agriculture and economy of the state.

Gardeners in the Pajaro Valley can take action now to protect their gardens from the various pests that can cause critical damage to crops.

Many sap-sucking pests are attracted to yellow and blue. Much the way sticky barriers prevent crawling insects from climbing up into fruit and nut trees, sticky sheets attract and trap many flying insects that might carry death and disease to your plants. These sheets are most commonly yellow, which attracts the widest variety of pests. Thrips prefer blue.

Unlike pesticides and other chemicals, insects cannot develop a resistance to stickiness. Plus, sticky sheets do not cause harm to people or pets. The worst that can happen is they will stick to you temporarily. When an insect lands on the sticky surface, it means death. They cannot escape, reproduce, feed or spread disease. They are done, and all you have to do is toss them in the trash.

Sticky sheets can capture a wide variety of pests, including: • Apple maggots • Armyworms • Artichoke plume moth • Asian citrus psyllids, which carry huanglongbing • Citrus leaf mining moth • Codling moth (budbreak; late March to early April) • Flea beetles • Fungus gnats, which carry black root rot • Navel orangeworm moth (mid-March) • Obliquebanded leafroller (early fruit set; mid-April) • Omnivorous leafroller (just before budbreak) • Onion flies • Orange tortrix (late December) • Stinkbugs (early April) • Peach twig borer (March 20-April 1) • Peach tree borer (April-September) • Potato psyllids, which carry zebra chip • Thrips, which carry spotted tomato wilt and 20 other viral diseases • Vine mealybugs (April - June) • Whiteflies

Sticky sheets are often used in tandem with pheromone traps. Pheromones lure the insects closer and the sticky sheet makes them unable to fly away. Whether you use a pheromone trap in conjunction with sticky sheets or not, you can use the sticky sheets to monitor for pest populations in and around specific plants or planting beds.

Fruit and nut trees get a lot of protection when sticky sheets are hung in early spring. You can also attach sticky sheets to bamboo poles, trellising or tomato cages. Sticky sheets help you see which pests are new arrivals, which populations are on the rise, and which are on the decline. Capturing pests on sticky sheets makes identification easier since they can’t fly away. You can photograph your pest and contact local Master Gardeners for information about how to most sustainably manage that specific pest without resorting to broad-spectrum pesticides.

The best news about yellow sticky sheets? They’re inexpensive. You can buy sticky sheets online and keep refreshing them over the season. As they fill up with pests that would have been feeding on your garden, simply throw them in the trash. If you are having problems with indoor pests, such as fungus gnats, you can always cut the sticky paper into a decorative shape and put it to work for your container plants.