Urban Ag Pest Updates: Twospotted Spider Mite

March 3, 2022


If you are an urban farmer in NYC and your tomato or cucumber leaves start showing small light-colored specks in summer, turning into yellowing, wilting, and "drying up," there's a good chance you have twospotted spider mites. The tiny yellow and black mites are the top pest of tomatoes in NYC, and can be a big problem for cucumbers, eggplant, beans, and various other crops grown both outdoors and indoors.

In this lunch session, CCE Urban Agriculture Specialist Sam Anderson will give an overview of what we know about twospotted spider mite in NYC, including how to recognize it early. We will see what has and hasn't worked for other urban farmers, and we will talk through some strategies you can try this year, leaving plenty of time for Q&A and farmer-to-farmer sharing. This is a free event!

Log Inoculation Party

April 28, 2024
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
New York, NY

Join us for a log inoculation party and Community Mushroom Educator (CME) reunion at the Randall's Island Urban Farm with past and prospective CMEs. We will be inoculating local tree species with shiitake and oyster spawn as part of a larger research project with the Randall's Island Park Alliance Urban Farm and Cornell Cooperative Extension. 

Field Guide: Arthropod Pests of NYC Vegetables

Arthropod Pests of NYC Vegetables aims to help urban farmers and gardeners find, identify, and understand the most common and important insects and other arthropod pests found in New York City farms and gardens. Some of these pests are rarely mentioned in other guides but are common in NYC. The guide emphasizes scouting tips, including how to identify pests by the damage they leave behind, even when you can't find the insect itself.

This guide was created as a collaboration between Cornell Cooperative Extension's Harvest New York team and the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program.