Mm

... and you're constantly having to manage it, maybe try growing something else.

The other thing is that mealybugs, they certainly can kill plants.

They can cause, you know, dieback, um, lots of other issues, sooty mold and things like that.

But plants oftentimes can tolerate a fair amount of mealybug pressure and keep surviving if the population doesn't just sort of completely go out of control.

So the other thing you should keep in mind is, do I actually need to do anything, or are there just some mealybugs that live in the bottom of my plant, and that's kind of okay for now? So I would start off with that, first of all.

Do you actually need to do something, and should you maybe just consider doing something else entirely if this is a perennial problem? Beyond that, as I've kind of mentioned before, having natural enemies around is a really good way to keep mealybug populations more in check.

Mm-hmm

What crops or plants in Southern California are keeping you the busiest these days?

So I work with a whole bunch of different things.

I do a lot of work with nursery and floriculture and then also just general landscaping.

I do also work with a bunch of different small farms and they grow a wide range of crops and stuff like that.

But my work primarily is looking at sort of nursery plants and then, again, things in the landscape like the eucalyptus beetle.

So in terms of what's keeping me the most busy, it is a lot of these landscape plants and then also stuff that grows in nurseries, which again is...

Basically anything and everything.

Is there a starter list of beneficial insects that people could look at if they truly want to bring more beneficials into their yard?