The oriental fruit moth (OFM), Grapholita molesta (Busck), which is among the most important insect pests of peaches and nectarines, has developed resistance to a wide range of insecticides. We investigated the ability of the entomopathogenic nematodes (EPN) Steinernema carpocapsae (Weiser), S. feltiae (Filipjev), S. riobrave (Cabanillas et al.), and Heterorhabditis marelatus (Liu and Berry) to...

Since the inception of the freshshipping tree fruit industry shortly after the California Gold Rush (during the 1860s and 1870s) the state’s dominant orchard system has been the open vase, with trees trained into a wide “cone” tree shape at relatively ample spacings within the orchard. Originally, trees were planted on wide, 22-to-25-foot spacings (70 to 90 trees per acre) in both directions to...

Flowers are complex structures devoted to pollinator attraction, through visual as well as chemical signals. As bees collect nectar on flowers to produce honey, some aspects of floral chemistry are transferred to honey, making chemical markers an important technique to identify the botanical and geographical origins of honey. We applied a new approach that considers the simultaneous analysis of...