David Shetlar
Areas of Expertise
Nurseries - insects/mites, Landscape/insects, Landscape/turfgrass IPM, Christmas trees/insects
Research Interests
Monitoring and assessing seasonal populations of sod webworms, hairy chinch bug and bluegrass billbug. Light trap samples have been taken for approximately 18 year/locations and the sod webworms species and northern masked chafer adults have been identified and tallied. However, these data do not help determine larval behavior during an entire season. Studies are to be initiated to take periodic samples and extract the sod webworm larvae to determine life tables. An ongoing project is evaluating hairy chinch bug populations in lawns with a specific interest on how the Beauveria fungal disease appears to be failing to control populations during times of moisture. Many new insecticides and/or formulations are being evaluated each year to determine their spectrum of activity (types of turfgrass insect pests contolled) and timing strategies (preventive, curative, rescue).