To assist people in making better pest problem diagnosis and pest management decisions, UC IPM developed the Plant Problem Diagnostic Tool. Users can diagnose 650 arthropod, disease, and abiotic problems on over 300 plant species using the tool.

“Rather than navigating through UC IPM’s content-dense website, the diagnostic tool will narrow down the information on the website based on user selections,” says Associate Director for Urban and Community IPM Karey Windbiel-Rojas. “The goal is to give users more confidence that they correctly identified their pest or problem, making it easier to find the most effective management information.”

The tool allows users to narrow down the potential plant pests or problems by choosing the plant that has the issue. Then they specify the part of the plant where the problem is occurring and select damage observed, such as yellowing leaves, gummy twigs or holes in leaves. These inputs generate a shorter list of possible pests, diseases, or abiotic problems helping the user verify their problems and find appropriate solutions.

So users can learn to fully take advantage of the Plant Problem Diagnostic Tool, Windbiel-Rojas and Urban IPM Educator Anne Schellman organized hands-on training programs to demonstrate the new tool to UC Master Gardeners and retail store employees.