San Francisco's Pollinator Program: Planting For Biodiversity
Presenter:
00:04
Anyway, moths are important. Flies, believe it or not. There are a lot of very important fly pollinators. Does anyone know what this is?
Speaker 1:
00:17
A fake bee.
Presenter:
00:17
What's that? A fake bee? It is a fake bee yes. Any of you IPM sorts know what this is?
Speaker 2:
00:17
Syrphid.
Presenter:
00:36
Syrphids. By the way they have two wings, not four. It's a little different. And Syrphids are really important pollinators. They're generalists as a rule and they are also important because of this little guy. That is a Syrphid larva eating aphids. And if you are a gardener, you've probably seen these. You can tell it's a Syrphid larva, I wish I had the video here. We don't have it. Can you see a little thing like this the front of its head, the narrow end it's just poking around like this on the leaf, it's almost certainly a Syrphid. That's how they find their food. Very good to have around. Natural enemies. You don't have flowers and won't have the Syrphids and so forth.
Presenter:
01:29
Beetles, were the first pollinators. They are the most ancient of these insect groups and they evolved with the most ancient groups of plants like magnolias. So, magnolias you will find beetles. They're not particularly good at pollinating, but they're there and there are other insects that will visit magnolias too. But you will especially see beetle pollinators on old groups--less evolved groups of plants.
Presenter:
02:08
And then there's birds. You know, they, I should say that, let's see there are a few other little details here. Oh, I think I wanted to say about flies, there are a lot of plants that are fairly specific to fly pollination. Usually they smell bad. Like dead horse [inaudible] Skunk cabbage, anything--if you ever have a flower and it smells like rotten meat, that's because they want those flies to come and visit. There are other things [inaudible] and golden rod that are also kind of applies. Pollinated plants tend to be large, strongly scented flowers with older groups of like magnolias, [inaudible] and pond lilies. Meanwhile, hummingbirds like tubular flowers, you've seen them.
Presenter:
03:30
That's what they like and don't get in their way because you'll be attacked. They like to stake out their territories, like California Fuchsia, Chapparal Curant are very good at attracting [inaudible] and hummingbirds.
Presenter:
03:52
Bats, which you don't have so much of this. But they're pretty good pollinators on plants they visited. And you can imagine why they've got a lot of fur. Look at that bat's mouth, it's just carrying a big load of pollen around with it. And, and a lot of night blooming strong musty scents. Often, they are bowl shaped flowers, wide open, like a cactus flower. You are not going to find them here so much. But agave cactus you will find a lot of this in the deserts. So, that's kind of a rundown of the more important groups of pollinators. We're going to talk a little bit about some of the projects the City worked with regard to pollinators.
Presenter 2:
04:52
The Green Hairstreak Butterfly is a little mid-sized butterfly about the same size as the federally most endangered Mission Blue which flies in Twin Peaks. This one flies in the Sunset Heights neighborhood above the [inaudible]. And it has definitely diminished in range regionally as well. This is her larvae and where she lays her eggs. So, this has been a really neat project over the last several years, since 2007, 10 years now, where nature and the City had to work with the various agencies. Principally with Public Works as part of the triangles which is part of Street Parks Program. Which is a citywide program that Public Works has and administers. And so, this is at 14th, no, at 15th and Noriega and Grand View Park is right above here.
Presenter 2:
05:58
Which is one of the breeding sites for the Green Hairstreak. And so, this is kind of the before shot planting all the plants of the native new habitat, including the coast buckwheat which you can kind of see here. And daisies which are nectar plants, so nectar plants. So, this is a year later. So, it's amazing what we can do in the built environment for our native critters. In this space, the Green Hairstreak. And now, with about 12 of these sites throughout what we call the Green Hairstreak corridor. The corridor including the Grand View Park, The Rocks, Golden Gate Heights Park, and Hock Hill. And 14th Avenue kind of winds between them. There are all these little street parks, about a dozen of them. And we are creating kind of a necklace of habitat islands to try to connect all the parks and the butterfly is now breeding in these little patches. So, pretty, pretty amazing success story. It's just an unbelievably, just snap your fingers story of "Build it and They Will Come."
Speaker 3:
07:12
How many years?
Presenter 2:
07:14
It's about a 10-year-old project now. Yeah. But it didn't take long for the butterfly to be breeding in these sites. It was probably about 2009, I think. It was incredible how quickly they found the buckwheat, the Coast Buckwheat, eriogonum latifolium, that's the host plant. Also, deerwheat, also the other host plant. But buckwheat is the main-- the one that we plant throughout the corridor. Within a matrix, of course, diverse student habitat and all the, and the nectar plants.
Presenter 2:
07:49
So, and now we just want to talk a little bit about our pollinators program at the Department of Environment and what we what we're doing to try to protect the pollinators. You know, with the objective of lowering the use of pesticides in the built environment and in general, expanding, increasing the number of, you know, sustainable and habitat friendly landscapes throughout the city. This is our favorite Ultra Green Sweat Bee. I grabbed this photo from the Presidio Park Stewards newsletter actually. This is the native Ethereal Spirit. One of our native lilies that still grows in San Francisco. And so, I just was like, "oh my God, a Green Sweat Bee, what a what a cool image.
Presenter 2:
08:38
So, here are three of our four calls to action, as part of our pollinators program. So, "Our Water, Our World" is a program that's been around for awhile, that was originally funded, out of, QC, right still funding. Yep. And really, it's an effort to get folks to pick the right tools at the hardware store, for example. So, pick less toxic products to manage your landscape. So, when you go to Cole hardware or somewhere like that, hopefully you'll see a shelf talker on the shelf, that says, buy this, not this. So, that's the, "Our Water, Our World" program to try to contribute not only to help your landscapes, but obviously a healthier bay, healthier watersheds. And then of course The Plant Finder, which some of you probably heard about it.
Presenter 2:
09:33
SFPlanetFinder.org and I'll talk about that a little bit more. And then in general planting sustainable landscapes. We mentioned [inaudible] landscaping in the beginning, which where, Chris and I have given this talk before, which is a great program, and as many of you know.
Presenter 1:
09:50
[Change in speakers] You know, it's important and part of the message here, and the gardeners in the room probably know very well, if you are using pesticides, bad bugs die hard. It's a lot harder to kill the bad guys. In many cases--they're used to eating plants. Plants have all these strange chemicals in them. They have evolved way to process those chemicals. So, those chemicals may be toxic to other animals. But, in other cases like mealybugs, my personal favorite, they have this waxy coating and anything you put on is just going to flow right off of it.
Presenter 2:
10:31
It's not even going to touch them. And they're very well protected from topical pesticides. This is one of the reasons they got NeoNix [?] Because guys like NeoNix because it was inside the plant, here they would be feeding on it. They are much harder to kill. The same amount of pesticide, if you're doing spray, is going to wreak havoc on the natural enemies. And here are my favorite group and actually the most important group of natural enemies are these parasitic wasps that are barely visible. You don't even know they're there most of the time. They are the most efficient way to control-- I mean it's the natural cycle. This is the way nature keeps its populations under control. Yeah. Lady bugs eat a lot but then they fly away and maybe they will eat something. Birds, yeah, with eat a few, but these are often dependent on species.
Speaker 2:
11:31
Many of these are species specific, just like the pollen aide. Some of them only feed one species-- one species of host insect. And that means they're really good at it. Some of them are so small, by the way, I can start foaming at the mouth, No, I could talk too much about this because I love these groups. The life cycles are just so fascinating. Some of them, for example, lay eggs in the brain of a thrips. Do you know how big a thrips is? A thrips, you can barely see it. They lay an egg in the brain of a thrips. And you literally won't know they're there, but they're super effective. So, unfortunately these are very fragile little wispy insects and it doesn't take much pesticide at all to kill them and they're dead. Don't look, that's not just not a wasp. It's a pretend wasp. So, that's part of the message. You know, if any of you are talking with the public about these sorts of things or talking with gardeners, that's a really important reason to be, to avoid pesticide use when you can. And when you can know, use the safer products that aren't so persistent.
Presenter 2:
12:52
[Change in speaker] Tag team. Hopefully we will entertain you by going back and forth. So, let's see, when did this start? Oh, I think it was right we were when we started with our Pollinators Program as such. Our web master came up with this really cool, that I really love, idea for a website, "Find, Tend, Grow." Find the wild, tend the wild, grow the wild. Very catchy. So, this is the grow the wild part to encourage us to plant wildlife friendly plants in our landscapes. So, you can find this on the Department of Environment website, and it links of course to the San Francisco Plant Finder, which is this tool that we created with the Planning Department. Really the Planning Department created the actual tool, the website itself. And I provided all of the kind of content expertise on the plants. There are about 700 species of plants on the plant finder. And this is just sentence describes what it's for, the resource for folks, to green neighborhoods and enhance urban ecology.
Presenter 2:
14:05
And this is the current homepage. And so, last year we made some modifications to the plant finder and incidentally, we also, recently, since that, engaged folks, colleagues and the Public Works Department and Rec and Park and other departments to try to use the plant finder very intentionally with making their plant lists so we could get even more feedback to continue to improve the website. But one way we improved it over the last couple of years is we try to add more options for the public to understand and for the city employees to understand, you know, how to create your plant list and what's available. And so, on that list there 100 to 300 species plants, which for a member of the public is awesome. A lot of really nice photos and a lot oft of information for every plant, but it can be kind of overwhelming.
Speaker 2:
15:01
So, we add, and then from there you can filter. There's a filter list here. I'm not showing it on this part of the screen but there is a filter by which you can pair down your list. But, partly to mitigate any kind of sense of overwhelming is we added these plant palates at the bottom, which are much shorter. So, there's a top 20. The Super 60 was one we added the year before. And then Sandy Soil, and these are lists and those other two are 15 to 20 species. So, to give people kind of a starter of know the variety of native plants that they can plant in their landscapes. You know, whether you're planting in your private yard, or your neighbors, you know, or in a street park, etc. Or partnering with Rec and Park in a site, you know, a community garden or whatever it is.
Presenter 2:
15:45
So, and then also this year, this last year, we added all of the different city lists. So, whether you're implementing the Storm Water Ordinance, from the PUC or whether you filed for a sidewalk landscaping permit at the Public Works. All those lists are now here in the plant finder. So, you can click on the Storm Water list and you get the entire PUC recommended storm water plant list. Same thing with sidewalk landscaping from Public Works. Same thing, with a recommended street tree list that is curated every year. And then 51 50, is a list that public works created that is thrifty, meaning, you know, kind of low maintenance and plants that can survive well in the, in the streetscape. So, all those lists are now included. So, we try make the Plant Finder really that kind of go to website for all things plant. For all plant lists within the City family.
Speaker 2:
16:40
And for the public too, to hopefully have a one stop shopping for all that. So, you know, we're doing it over time. It's not perfect yet, but we've got a lot of really positive feedback. So, I encourage you to go to it. It's at SFPlantFinder.org. Let me know what you think about it and we're going to continue to improve it as I said. And so, like I said, when you, you can click on those buttons and you can filter further. So, for example, there's a pollinator scope there. So, on the right it will be on the website and you click on one of the larger plant lists and then you come over here, oh, here you go. And you click one of these, you can see bloom time. You've got many other things including like habitat features including pollinators.
Speaker 2:
17:25
So there's a nice list. Just the first, you can see the first, 12 of 42 species that come up after you've click on Super 60 and filtered for pollinators. Okay. And, we also added to our program of calls to action within our Protect the Pollinators plan program, this concept of be friendly plant nurseries. And it's been kind of an educational process. We actually got a lot of great information. We were able to put some funds to a contractor to give us--to do a whole bunch of research about kind of the landscape of what's going on out there in terms of plants and nurseries and pollinators and pesticides and sort of the activities that are happening and how retailers you're handling, etc. And so, we're, really trying to, in essence what we're trying to do is move kind of the IPM program, which just in the city family, right?
Speaker 2:
18:27
Because IPM ordinance is just for city lands and city departments, right? So, but as a private person, you can go and use whatever you want in your backyard, or your front yard, right? And so, what we're trying to do all the time is to move that IPM values into the rest of, into the private sector in essence. And so, thinking about how we can do that. So, this is one way that we thought to do it, which is to, create a Bee Friendly Plant Nurseries Program. So, we sent out a survey and we really, you know, we kind of, we, we sent it out to a bunch of nurseries, but really the lower hanging fruit are the native plant nurseries. And so, if you go to our website, you can see all these listed. They've all filled out the surveys and we announced if they are pollinator friendly nurseries because really none of these nurseries are using any form of systemic pesticide, in their operations. It's hard to find that in the conventional nurseries. Maybe you probably are aware of that. And this is something that, this is a problem that we're wrestling with, that we are communicating with different people on and just trying to get ideas about how to, how to attack that because we really, you know, if we want to lower pesticides even more in our environment, then we want to decrease the use of them in the plant production phase, right? So, that's kind of what this thing is going to do.
Presenter 1:
19:48
[Change in Speaker] That's what we're going to talk about [inaudible] talks about with their audience before and after, this is a house in Richmond. But, you know, if you really need that little piece of grass out front, wouldn't you rather have something beautiful like this. Of course, that has a paint job too, but. I think it kind of speaks for itself. It can be very beautiful as well as providing some level of biodiversity.
Presenter 2:
20:18
[Change in Speaker] This is just to demonstrate the partners that you know, the city works with on all this work, over time and also this, I had an indifferent in another presentation, but over on the left, again, just trying to figure out who else we should be partnering with to really get the word out to strengthen our effort, to protect pollinators and to, to bring this forth to the public.
Presenter 1:
20:41
{Change in Speaker] So, this is the last section, our few tips on what landscapers can do to emphasize, to promote pollinators, support pollinators in our community. You know, again, this is more a message for the residential audience. A lot of, you know, this stuff I would say, but emphasizing natives. This does not mean you can't plant non-natives. This does not mean non-natives are not beautiful and there are many non-natives that are important for pollinators too. And for honey production. But when you, when you do emphasize natives, you are maintaining this local ecosystem--that big web that was already there with all of these specialist insects and so forth. So, emphasize natives is a great sort of rule of thumb. Some examples of, you know, at UC Berkeley, the day of the UC Berkeley bee lab--Gordon Frankie, a professor over there, and they've done a bunch of studies on pollinators and they tried to-- they wanted to find out what are the champion plants for pollinators. So, these are, these are basically counting insects and counting the species and the results just to generalize, composites are really high on the list. Excuse me. And Seaside Daisy one of the winners. And it just so happens the great Green Hairstreaks had some seaside daisies so a double winner on that one. Mint and sages are also up there on the list. There were the other big group and they are very important for nectar feeders. They have very, very copious supplies of nectar. So, there are a lot of needed salvias and mints out there. As general rules of thumb, foragers have evolved to be efficient, and being efficient means, you look for a big bunch of food. You don't look for little individual flowers. So, planting big patches of color is much more likely to attract pollinators. They get more bang for their buck if they're a specialist. So, patches of color, is a great idea. Paying attention to the calendar. Here we're lucky that we can have flowers all year long. But there are fairly limited number of flowers that are blooming in January, let's say. There are exceptions, like the Manzanita. This is a Franciscan Manzanita actually and having those around helps support the population.
Presenter 1:
23:33
There are also ways to create homes for solitary bees in particular that you'll see floating around the internet. And they, they do work, they can work. Sometimes it's as simple as drilling a bunch of holes in a piece of wood or leaving, some stocks, some hollow stocks plants up a little longer than you might normally leave them. Because there are some that live in those hollow stocks. Gordon Frankie's lab in Berkeley likes to talk about the importance of bare soil and this is, yeah, I've seen a few. That's kind of a tough topic. Sometimes I wish he wouldn't talk about it because there's a lot of, there are many drawbacks to bare soil, as you all know. One of them is weeds. Another is water conservation. We have a lot of really good reasons why we mulch and manage landscapes. But there are always little patches here and there that we can leave there. You know, especially in little embankments, odd patches, spaces between cobblestones. You know, if you have sand, then the spaces between cobblestones. Sometimes that can be enough to provide a place for some of these. So, I mean, it's fine to make bee homes. I would definitely hold back on scraping all your mulch up.
Presenter 1:
25:11
And generally, again, this is preaching to the converted, but diversifying planting. You don't have to just plant the winners you need for your own aesthetic enjoyment. But also, for the ecosystem it is good to have more species there. There are some wonderful resources out there with garden designs already ready made. I don't know if we have the link on here, but I can send it out afterwards. These are free resources that are available. You might've noticed my spelling error on the email, I said program manager, and somehow that turned into manatee. So, now we both have new titles. (Laughs)
Presenter 1:
26:05
Thanks guys. So, anyway, we have some time left for questions and there's coffee. Drink coffee, please. Yes?
Speaker 3:
26:23
I'd like to express to people that the prize, the real prize is that you can keep flowers blooming all year round. Our big [inaudible] are in July and August.
Presenter 1:
26:31
Good, thanks. So, it's not just January?
Speaker 3:
26:32
Not it's not.
Inaudible Sect:
27:21
[inaudible section]
Presenter 1:
27:34
Are you talking about the big masses of ladybugs that come in the winder? Or are you talking about ladybugs in general? [inaudible] you know they have those aggregating ones that come in the winter. They have those particular places for whatever reason, climate, or whatnot, the whole valley is orange with ladybugs. Anything else?
Speaker 4:
28:01
I'd like the share the work of Gil Tatshad [?] who lives out at Richmond-El Cerrito. And he is a chemist by career but in his retirement, he started building natural pollinators along the bike tracks. And he thought for California natives, the best preparation, just maybe two inches of soil on top of un-touched clay. Because the California natives, the roots don't go down deep. And of course, I've been having miserable success because I've been doing just the wrong thing. He does have a website that is kind of quirky, but he's really had incredible results.
Speaker 5:
29:00
Peter, so you said that the Green Hairstreak got moved into some of those start-ups within two years?
Presenter 1:
29:05
Yeah.
Speaker 5:
29:05
Were those plants that were planted from a green nursery that wasn't using any NeoNix or were those native plants?
Presenter 2:
29:11
Well that's a great story in itself. Thanks for asking. So, Nature in the City actually has a program nested within the Green Hairstreak program or for it and for other projects, called the Backyard Native Nursery Network. So, and I just, Amber just told me the other day, and I believe, I think that last year, this growing season they had 20 different participants. So, 20 people growing the local native plants in their backyards. Yeah. Without the use of any pesticides whatsoever, including the coast buckwheat and those plants for these sites.
Presenter 2:
29:46
So, I think, they maybe had 500 plants this year, you know, so it's not a huge scale. But these are small sites as well and this year I think there's was a lot of infilling, there weren't a lot of new sites, so yeah. So, like totally homegrown and volunteer driven. And each site has kind of a local resident that manages it and it's a totally volunteer driven program. So, all sites have a steward.
Speaker 6:
30:12
All those sites were planted with native plants?
Presenter 2:
30:20
Yes. All of those sites have been planted in their backyard. Some of them have been brought from other stewards or you know. [Inaudible section of audio].
Speaker 6:
30:43
In any of those twelve sites any trees?
Presenter 2:
30:43
No, they were focusing on the green habitat for the Green Hairstreak and for the songbirds and for White Crown Sparrow, for example. But no trees.
Speaker 7:
30:54
So, yeah Peter, you just kind of touched on a little element. You guys have been talking about native plants, but in the academy, the way we are looking at it, California is a giant or floristic region. I mean, it's giant, it's bigger than countries. So, you know, by targeting local native plants, we're looking at plants that are 50 miles around here, you know, for even bigger, 50 miles, both. So, a hundred-mile diameter and that encapsulates, you know, pretty much the entire bay area. And there's a huge number of plant diversity that you can choose from. We use CalFlora and we find a plant that's available and we just put it in the database and look and see, "Oh hey, here it's been found in the wild by somebody reporting it. And the way that it was taught to me is that biodiversity isn't just the number of species of birds and the insects, it's the number of local species of birds.
Speaker 7:
31:57
And so, by doing this, you kind of protect some of the species that are in danger and on the fringe, the lesser, you know, sort of. So, yeah, for sure. You can plant like a hundred different kinds of seeds that are from Southern California that are going to attract all kinds of things and that's a huge success, but is it going to, is it going to support that little teeny fly or that little insect?
Presenter 2:
32:23
The specialists.
Speaker 7:
32:24
Specialists, yes. So, that's what we're trying to do on the roof. On the grounds we just any California native plants, cultivars, hybrids. It is looks good then it probably going to work for us.
Presenter 2:
32:55
Cool. Thank you for that.
Speaker 6:
32:56
Just in my research I've found that most of the native nurseries in the area, flowering ornamental trees are not treated typically with any NeoNix. But treated with fungicides and those increases the strength of NeoNix to the pollinators. So, a pollinator can bring in some pollen from a NeoNix flower, into the hive and then fungicides are interacting logistically with those increasing the strength of the NeoNix. And NeoNix which are 7,000 to 14,000 times stronger than DDT. So, fungicides are still being injected into many trees. And then also in the native nurseries, they're selling fruit trees and those have typically all been treated. Fruit trees are the, like if we ingest it, it has to have that poison in it. That's basically how I translate that. The flowering ornamentals and almost all conventionally grown trees in the State of California are treated. Almost all the flowering, ornamental, wholesale tree growers and brokers treat them.
Presenter 2:
34:02
Yeah. There's a whole spectrum of business models, if you will. in the nurseries from the native plant, nurseries, at the [inaudible] which are there and such as the one that PUC is creating on their land that is just for restoration projects.
Presenter 2:
34:16
Sutro Stewards has a nursery up on there, up on Mount Sutro that's all local natives for restoration up there, but they're also selling to the public, but they're all growing only local natives. So, there are, so there are now nurseries, native plant nurseries that are making them available to the public. But then there's no on down the spectrum where some places they call themselves the native plant nurseries, they're selling a lot of native plants, but they're also selling other ornamentals as well, as you said. So, there is a whole spectrum for sure. So that's exactly something that we're struggling with and we're trying to get some information about.
Presenter 1:
35:00
Yeah, that's a great point. And one of the other obstacles is just the quarantines that in place for some of invasive pests like Asian citrus psyllid [sp ?} or shottle [sp ?] bore. There are certain kinds of plants that can't be transported around the state without being treated with something. We don't know exactly, how much of an obstacle it is, but yeah, it's a tough one.
Speaker 6:
35:27
That's with biodiversity that San Francisco has accidentally done in the past. That we should at least increase our biodiversity instead of the current monoculture that they are planting now. So, they are replacing diversity with more monoculture.
Presenter 1:
35:43
Well, I wouldn't say it's a monoculture of trees they're are planting. They have a list. We actually are, I mean if that's what you mean of that they have compared to a lot of cities in the country, we are quite diverse as far as street trees go.
Speaker 6:
35:57
Yeah, I agree. I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just saying that the trees that they are bringing in with more--they are replanting the trees that they remove with more street trees.
Speaker 8:
36:16
Where would you point someone to if they want to get involved and sponsor a pollinator garden in their neighborhood?
Presenter 2:
36:23
Oh my goodness. Well, get on our website there's a whole suite of resources. But it depends on the, yeah, I mean basically the links. You know ideally you have a, you have maybe a group of people who are working together. Or If you want to create a sustainable social situation that's going to be able to manage the site for a time. And then it's a process to work with Public Works and actually the Parks Alliance that they collaborate on the street parks mostly.
Presenter 1:
36:57
We don't have an organized program for that at this point. We've been talking about it. There are other cities like Boulder that have some sort of like little medallion or something that they offer to residents who plant pollinator gardens. A common branding. So, we haven't quite gone there yet. We're still thinking what the best route is through these particular campaigns. But it would be a terrific thing to do it.
Presenter 2:
37:23
So, yeah, please check out the website and then give us feedback on, on how it is to interact with in terms of answering your question.
Speaker 8:
37:32
Okay. How about the backyard growers? Those are just donated to that.
Presenter 2:
37:38
Yeah, no, they're all volunteers. But really those plants are all just donated to the project to, you know, you don't have to have a butterfly. It's really cool. No, I mean it's, my favorite project. It's the flagship project of Nature in the City for sure. And it's just such an amazing model for what we want to do all over the place.
Presenter 1:
38:05
Any other questions?
Speaker 5:
38:08
I have a question. You know the trees that grow along Market Street, do they attract bugs more?
Presenter 2:
38:15
Well, Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.
Speaker 5:
38:17
Is that what they eat? The Lemon Plain.
Presenter 2:
38:17
Yeah, that's, why the Tiger Swallowtail is there because of the Lemon Plain tree. Yeah, the Tiger's on Market. So, thank you very much and thanks for putting up with us. And it's been a real pleasure and a privilege and a luxury to have the time to talk about all this. Usually I'm doing like 50 in like 15 minutes. So, it's been terrific.
Presenter 1:
38:43
But don't go yet. You are not released. (Applause) So, we did get the number from DPR. So, we do have continuing education credit when you're done. You're not allowed to do that until you've drank some coffee. So, now does anyone have any particular issues that they would like to raise? For the group to chime in on. No problems.
Presenter 1:
39:16
I'm not going to talk about termites, Luis. We've got some termite things happening. I mean we have, okay, we have like Public Works, we have Rec Park, PUC. Are any of you aware of termite issues in any of your departmental operations? We hear them very rarely. And I wonder how much of it is under the radar. But we are starting to get some now. Okay, nothing. Yes. [inaudible section] The airport is trying to be on this heroic quest to try to get all of these food vendors at the airport onto the program. Are they answering?
Presenter 1:
40:27
Yep. Cause then you have people, you know how those restaurants are, all hiring different contractors and doing different things and it really make sense if everyone knows what's going on and they're supposed to comply with the ordinance anyway. So, it's a real super challenge. But we are giving moral support. Anything, any other?
Speaker 9:
40:55
Yeah, just ta question on the broader topic of flying insects. So, right now at Parks we have a lot of products listed and wasp freeze is one of our allowable products or treating yellow jacket nests. So, in addition to using that on occasion for emergency situations in high traffic areas, we use traps and for reason before me is this product, that looks like a decoy. It's like a fake nest. And the marketing around it suggests that you need to have this ability to detect whether there are other nests in the vicinity and would avoid building a nest in those other areas. I'm wondering if your partner or anyone else in here ever used a product like that in high traffic areas given various turfs?
Presenter 1:
41:33
Are you talking about Yellow jackets?
Speaker 9:
41:33
Yeah, wasps. I mean I think the marketing just to the broader sort of nesting type of situation. But it was interesting to me and it seems a little gimmicky but I thought it would be worth maybe highlighting that or to ask if someone has had success with something like that.
Presenter 1:
41:53
I have never heard of it, has anyone?
Speaker 9:
41:57
Has anyone heard of any research around the whole decoy concept?
Presenter 1:
42:02
Honestly, I've never heard of anyone trying that. I mean, I would imagine they have some [inaudible] so I can't imagine, I can't imagine how it would work, but I'd love to see the information.
Speaker 9:
42:14
It supposedly deters a new nest, yes. It's a fake nest.
Presenter 1:
42:19
A fake nest. And they go in there and they die?
Speaker 9:
42:28
No, no. no. They see it and think there is someone in this turf, I'm out of here.
Presenter 1:
42:28
Like a scarecrow. Okay. Can you forward?
Speaker 9:
42:35
Absolutely.
Presenter 1:
42:37
Okay. I'd love to see it. I've never heard of it.
Presenter 2:
42:40
He needs to see the link to understand it. [Laughs]
Speaker 9:
42:42
Disclosure. It's an Amazon link. This is not like some research thing.
Presenter 2:
42:42
Yeah. So, you are using Wasp Freeze. Are you using any of the organic products?
Speaker 9:
42:57
You know, our pest control vendor Atco just forwarded something that has more oils. I think there is a pyrethrin in it too. It's a dust. I don't remember what the product name was.
Presenter 2:
43:07
Maybe we have some people in the room who've tried some of the organic products. Have you had some sort of some partial success and failure?
Speaker 8:
43:16
I guess more than anything else for us, we use some like detergent water. "Oh yeah." So, it's a private label detergent water and we use that and we kind of dig up the nests and keep it submerged in the sudsy water. So, it takes a little bit of an effort because we wear the suit when we have to dig it out. And they have Sentry at Dust, which is probably what that product was. So, essentially it is a whole family of green products. It's always a matter of like are you contacting the nest very well or not. So, you usually end up suiting up anyway, dusting it and trying to really like open up, if it's subterranean yellow jacks, opening up then just mechanically removing it. [inaudible]
Presenter 1:
44:35
Did you want to chime in about your yellow jacket experiences or anyone?
Speaker 5:
45:02
We use some of the products with the essential oils in it and if you open the hole, after you treat it and come back, they are usually dead. But it has to be earlier in the season.
Presenter 1:
45:03
Then there's the whole, the whole concept of just digging it and letting the skunks take care of the rest, but you have to knock them back first, right? Was that RecPark or was that you all? Going out at night and spraying it to knock them back and dig it, dig it up and you sort of leave it lay and hope that we have some friends who would helping us.
Speaker 10:
45:37
I think RecPark did that.
Presenter 1:
45:39
How did that work?
Speaker 10:
45:41
Oh, we don't do that now.
Presenter 1:
45:41
Okay. You just dig them up. You wear a suit and dig them up. [inaudible] just dig them up basically. Is that your general, your general approach now is just digging them up when you can?
Speaker 10:
46:12
We use the product and it didn't do anything?
Presenter 1:
46:24
It didn't do anything, okay. So, we have mixed experiences with the eco product.
Speaker 10:
46:24
I just pulled up the label. It's EcoPco is this other dust based some types of things that you were we're using.
Presenter 1:
46:33
In that case we were using the jet spray, I think, right? It was an eco exempt product. I can't remember which one it was, right off the top of my head.
Speaker 5:
46:52
Yeah, its the time of day too.
Presenter 1:
46:52
When it's cold, when it's cool.
Speaker 5:
46:56
Get them when they are sleeping.
Presenter 1:
46:56
Get them when you arrive at work at three in the morning. Okay. Any other comments on the yellow jacket? Favorite yellow jacket techniques.
Speaker 11:
47:06
Just out of curiosity do you people use wasp traps?
Presenter 1:
47:06
Is RecsParks using wasp traps at all?
Speaker 8:
47:06
We put them up in areas where there was a lot of, yellow jacket activity.
Presenter 1:
47:30
I've never seen any data that shows it actually controls anything. It's kind of for show. We're doing something but or maybe for show and "Watch out. There's wasps around here." Yeah. Any other topics you want to, anyone want to bring up? This is your chance until next month. Going, going, everyone wants to leave early. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I don't have anything else on the agenda, but we have volumes leftover coffee pastries.
End Video:
48:07
End Presentation