Invasive plants and animals currently make up more than 30% of Maine\u2019s flora and an unknown, but increasingly growing percentage of Maine\u2019s fauna. While these species are most apparent along roadsides and in many natural areas, they also are abundant in agricultural fields. Two such species have recently found their way into the Maine blueberry ecosystem. These are the invasive fruit infesting pest form Asia, the spotted wing drosophila; and the invasive flowering pasture pest, St. John\u2019s Wort or Klamath weed. While pesticide tactics are currently being investigated for their control, biological controls already existing in Maine will be assessed and evaluated to their promise. Techniques for effective natural biological control agents will be developed and transfered to the Maine lowbush blueberry grower community as an overall strategy to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides in the state\u2019s largest fruit crop.<\/p>\n
Investigator:\u00a0<\/strong>Drummond, F. A<\/p>\n Unit:\u00a0<\/strong>School of Biology & Ecology<\/p>\n Termination Date: \u00a0<\/strong>30-Sep-18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Invasive plants and animals currently make up more than 30% of Maine\u2019s flora and an unknown, but increasingly growing percentage of Maine\u2019s fauna. While these species are most apparent along roadsides and in many natural areas, they also are abundant in agricultural fields. Two such species have recently found their way into the Maine blueberry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":2322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","spc_primary_category":0},"categories":[43,45,52,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-blueberries","category-insects","category-research-programs"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":43,"label":"Agriculture"},{"value":45,"label":"Blueberries"},{"value":52,"label":"Insects"},{"value":44,"label":"Research Programs"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/98\/2015\/03\/2-1024x692.jpg",1024,692,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"","author_link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/author\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":43,"name":"Agriculture","slug":"agriculture","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":43,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":44,"count":58,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":43,"category_count":58,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Agriculture","category_nicename":"agriculture","category_parent":44},{"term_id":45,"name":"Blueberries","slug":"blueberries","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":45,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":44,"count":14,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":45,"category_count":14,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Blueberries","category_nicename":"blueberries","category_parent":44},{"term_id":52,"name":"Insects","slug":"insects","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":52,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":44,"count":15,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":52,"category_count":15,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Insects","category_nicename":"insects","category_parent":44},{"term_id":44,"name":"Research Programs","slug":"research-programs","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":44,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":81,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":44,"category_count":81,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Research Programs","category_nicename":"research-programs","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3527,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions\/3527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mafes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}