Pests of Woody Landscape Plants: An Integrated Pest Management Scouting Guide

Effective pest and disease management is a vital part of maintaining Morris Arboretum’s plant collection. The plant protection intern is responsible for scouting the living collection, researching treatment strategies and using integrated pest management techniques to treat infested/infected plants. To facilitate this process, Morris Arboretum is in need of an updated scouting guide that not only lists key Arboretum pests and diseases, but gives detailed information on when and how to scout for these problems and what to do when such problems arise. With the plant protection internship being only a year long, the intern often starts out from scratch each June, with no detailed records or clear-cut timeline for scouting the Arboretum’s living collection. To help solve this problem, I have created a scouting guide outlining ten key pests that frequently affect the Arboretum’s woody plant collection. The guide focuses on arthropod problems, rather than fungal diseases, and viral and bacterial pathogens. Included in the guide are photos of key pest/disease stages and typical plant damage. Also included is a brief background on the pest lifecycle, typical damage to the plant, monitoring/scouting guidelines, control options and host plants. This guide can be used by the plant protection intern and other arboretum staff to effectively scout, monitor and treat the living collection using a variety of pest management strategies.