There has been a lot of field work among organic and conventional farmers here in California on planting or managing beneficial habitats on field margins and even within fields as special strip planting. Lygus bugs (similar to aphids) tend to pour out of wildlands in spring time in the Central Valley and attack numerous kinds of crops. Here on the coast we have less pest pressure. At the farm we have field margins and islands within the farm planted to flowers and natives mostly known to support the kinds of predators and parasites of farm pests. We grow grains over winter to attract and hold the early waves of migrating ladybugs who as adults are attracted to the pollen and soon enough find aphids or other insect colonies into which the both feed and lay eggs.

Well hey, I am not espousing chemicals either, but I am profoundly uncomfortable with the continual movement of non-native bacteria and fungi into an ecosystem which has not been able to adapt at speed of global travel. And yes, we are paying the price for the untrammeled movements of organic materials across oceans. Regarding plant species, we have witnessed the dying of bluebell woods as the more vigorous Spanish bluebell out-competes and hybridises with our native bluebells. RRD from eriophyid mites have arrived from Asia (along with citris longhorn beetle and a host of other problematic life-forms) during my lifetime....and there is no cure on the immediate horizon. For some, who must have variety and novelty, I guess this is seemingly a price worth paying....and for sure, we cannot turn the clock back to a simpler time when we grew natives, wild flowers and local foodplants....and nor would I wish to do so. I do, however, wish for a wider research base, with a more rounded agenda and a bit more of an attempt to understand the dynamic interconnectedness of life. The theory that Japanese knotweed beetles will simply die when they have eaten all the host plant is rubbish - the beetles are being introduced because the current chemical treatment costs massive amounts of money (Japanese knotweed being, in turn, an introduced species with no natural predator). See how the cycle turns?- with no natural predators to act as a counterbalance, we really have no idea what effect this will have upon our finely nuanced eco-system. Moreover, others are not happy with having these things foisted upon them (such as our groundwater being poisoned) - I just hope that the greater awareness we now have regarding how we operate in a shared world will encompass a more rounded and holistic view where a short term profit is not developed at the long-term expense of balance. Hopefully, the brouhaha about chemicals will also spread so we question short-term fixes because we really do not fully understand the workings of the natural world.... Writing this from the fens where a tradition of intensive agriculture and monocropping is turning the most fertile alluvial soils in the UK into a dustbowl reminiscent of Oklahoma in the 1930s. Yep, I am gloomy and somewhat despairing.

Daniel how has your rainfall been this spring? Gnats usually don't hang around in a soil that is watered deep and infrequent. When Mother Nature steps in, you can see mushrooms and sometimes the flying critters that come with too moist soil. While a healthy soil will be attractive to caterpillars and other "bugs," it is also attractive to birds, toads, lizards, and other predatory animals. When the delicious bugs are poisoned with Sevin or other insecticides, the natural predators either die off or don't come around. If the delicious bugs are killed with biological controls such as the BT bacterium or beneficial nematodes, the cause of death is completely natural and leaves the predators unharmed. We used to have so many pill bugs they blackened the sidewalk. Once I went organic and stopped using insecticide, those hordes of pill bugs went away. Now I see them crawling over my dog's poop and I seem them in my compost pile. Whatever they do to dog poop it's magical. If you can stand to leave it alone for 3-4 days, it disappears. I'm moving out into the country where they have dung beetles for pet poop. When my dog goes out there it's completely gone in 3-4 HOURS!

Title: "Biological control of rose powdery mildew (Podosphaera pannosa (Wallr.: Fr.) de Bary" See: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Vijay_Kumar646/publication/311499625_Biological_control_of_rose_powdery_mildew_Podosphaera_pannosa_Wallr_Fr_de_Bary/links/5aaa9f270f7e9b8826711df4/Biological-control-of-rose-powdery-mildew-Podosphaera-pannosa-Wallr-Fr-de-Bary.pdf