Southern Region IPM Center
Annual Update
Prepared for the National IPM Committee
Meeting, October 2009
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
Page 2
Five “Friends of IPM” Awards Presented in
Second Year of Award Program
In the second year for the Friends of IPM
Awards, the Southern Region IPM Center
presented five awards. The five winners
were chosen from 15 nominations.
The Friends of IPM Award recognizes
extraordinary achievement in research,
extension and implementation of integrated
pest management (IPM) in the Southern
Region.
The following individuals and groups
received awards this year:
Scott Ludwig, Texas AgriLife Extension
IPM Specialist, 2009 IPM Educator Award
Growers trust the
information Texas
AgriLife Extension
IPM Specialist Dr.
Scott Ludwig
provides because
they have seen
results. As a result,
pesticide use has
decreased among
the growers who have attended Dr. Ludwig’s
workshops, worked with him directly or read
his articles.
Amy Fulcher, Extension Associate,
Nursery Crops, University of Kentucky,
2009 Future Leader Award
From 2004 to
2007, growers
estimated that
they saved up to
$400,000
because of what
they learned
during Amy’s
workshops. Her scouting programs have
saved growers over $34,000, and even
growers not in her programs saved as much
as $5,750 in control costs for granulate
ambrosia beetle infestations of redbud
because of information disseminated in her
weekly newsletter.
Chris Mills, Integrated Pest Management
Specialist, North Carolina, 2009 IPM
Implementer Award
After being asked to
assume the role as IPM
Specialist two years
ago, Chris began his
new job by developing
an IPM policy for the
district and working with
district personnel to
implement it. He then met with
administrators, teachers, staff and students
in each school to explain how they could
help keep pests out.
Western North Carolina Christmas Tree
IPM Program, 2009 Pulling Together
Award
North Carolina
Western Christmas
Tree IPM Program
members come from
a variety of
backgrounds and
assist growers with
insect, disease, weed
and wildlife issues.
Scouting and ground cover management has
resulted in a dramatic reduction of
pesticides, from 4.06 pounds of active
ingredient per acre in 2000 to 2.09 pounds of
active ingredient per acre in 2006.
Southern Region School IPM Working
Group, 2009 Bright Idea Award
In May 2007, the
Southern Region IPM
Center invited school IPM
leaders from each land
grant university to meet in
Atlanta, Georgia, to share
resources. Since then, the
Southern Region School
IPM Working Group has
pursued and received
several grants.
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
Page 3
Seven 2009 Southern Regional IPM Grants
Awarded
This year Southern
Regional IPM grants
funded 7 of 34
proposals for a total of
$796,356. Of the
funded proposals, 3
were for research
projects, 2 were for
extension projects, and 2 were for
combination research and extension
projects.
• Reduced-Risk Pre– and Postharvest
•
•
The following list includes all of the 2009
Southern Region IPM awards:
• Development of an online culture and
•
morphology image reference tool for
diagnosticians and identifiers (University
of Florida: Carrie L. Harmon, $22,929)
Teamwork and Technology Deliver IPM
Strategies and Resources to
Homeowners by Empowering Master
Gardener Volunteers (University of
Georgia: Ellen M. Bauske, $45,100)
•
•
Management of Multiple FungicideResistant Populations of the Peach
Brown Rot Fungus Monilinia fructicola
(University of Georgia: Harald Scherm,
$139,989)
Developing Tools for Integrated Pest
Management of an Exotic White Grub in
Sweetpotato (NC State University: Mark
Ray Abney, $142,081)
Farmscape ecology of stink bugs and the
development of environmentally friendly
control strategies (Clemson University:
Francis P.F. Reay-Jones, $153,946)
Improving management of the brown dog
tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus, in
Southeastern residential environments
(University of Florida: Philip E. Kaufman,
$171,425)
Revising management programs for the
rice stink bug in southern rice (Louisiana
State University: Michael Stout
($120,886)
2009 IPM Enhancement Grants Awarded
For the fourth year, the Southern Region IPM
Center IPM Enhancement Grants Program
was split into two parts. Part 1 includes the
state contact, IPM documents (crop profiles,
pest management strategic plans, IPM priorities and IPM elements), and IPM working
group projects. Part 2 includes seed and capstone projects.
Separate Requests for Applications (RFAs)
for Parts 1 and 2 of the IPM Enhancement
Grants Program were released on December
10, 2008 with a deadline of February 13,
2009 for submitting proposals to the Center.
Eleven proposals (with 18 separate projects)
requesting $392,876 and 10 proposals (with
10 projects) requesting $239,647 were submitted for Parts 1 and 2, respectively.
Grant Review Panels for Parts 1 and 2 of the
IPM Enhancement Grants Program reviewed
the proposals and met separately on April 2,
2009 to evaluate proposals and make recommendations for funding to Center staff. For
Part 1, 9 proposals (15 projects) totaling approximately $315,110 were approved for
funding. Six proposals (6 projects) totaling
approximately $149,897 were approved for
funding under Part 2. A list of projects (and
project directors) selected for funding for
2009 is provided below.
PART 1:
State Contact Projects:
•
State Contact and IPM Documents for
Texas (Mark A. Matocha and Don L.
Renchie)
continued on next page
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
Page 4
IPM Enhancement Grants (continued)
IPM Documents Projects:
•
Multi-State Crop Profile and Pest
Management Strategic Plan for Nursery Crops (Amy F. Fulcher, Anthony
Vincent LeBude, Jean L. WilliamsWoodward, Sarah A. White, Steven
D. Frank, Frank A. Hale, Matthew
Randolph Chappell, Juang-Horng
Chong, Alan S. Windham, S. Kristine
Braman, Kelly L. Ivors, Craig R. Adkins and Winston C. Dunwell)
State Contacts and IPM Documents Projects:
•
State Contact and IPM Documents
for Alabama (Henry Y. Fadamiro)
•
Southern Region IPM Network for
Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin
Islands and Related IPM Documents
(Mark A. Mossler and Frederick M.
Fishel)
•
State Contact and IPM Documents
for Kentucky (Patricia L. Lucas)
•
State Contact and IPM Documents
for Oklahoma (Jim T. Criswell,
Charles C. Luper, Justin L. Talley,
Eric J. Rebek, and Damon L. Smith)
•
Tennessee Pest Management Information Network - State Contact Project and IPM Documents (Darrell D.
Hensley and James Patrick Parkman)
•
Virginia Pest Management Information Network - State Contact Project
(SCP) and IPM Documents (Michael
J. Weaver)
IPM Working Group Projects:
•
Leveraging Resources through the
Southern Regional School IPM Working Group in Support of Children's
Environmental Health (Dennis R.
Ring, Dale K. Pollet, Lawrence C.
“Fudd” Graham, Janet A. Hurley and
Faith M. Oi)
PART 2:
IPM Seed Projects:
•
Building Diagnostic Capacity for Detection of Plant Viruses (Jane E. Polston and Carrie Lapaire Harmon)
•
Weeds as reservoirs of resistance
breaking TSWV isolates in tomato
and pepper systems of Georgia
(Rajagopalbabu Srinivasan and Ronald David
Gitaitis)
•
Preliminary Investigation
of an Integrated Multiple-tactic Strategy for
Managing Stink Bugs in Soybean
(Jeffrey A. Davis, D. Ames Herbert,
Jr. and Katherine L. Kamminga)
•
Evaluating Zinc Supplementation for
Management of Pierce's Disease
(Jeff A. Brady, Travis R. Faske and
Donald G. McGahan)
•
Pheromone Preferences of Distinct
Pecan Nut Casebearer Populations in
North America (Raul F. Medina and
Marvin K. Harris)
IPM Capstone Projects:
•
Controlling invasive mole crickets in
Florida pastures (J. Howard Frank,
Norman C. Leppla and Ed Jennings)
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
Page 5
New Report Sheds Light on Stink Bug Management
Entomologists from the
southeast US have developed
new ways of approaching pest
management for stink bugs.
Their findings have just been
published in a 16-page report,
Managing Stink Bugs in
Cotton: Research in the
Southeast Region.
The report is based on a
three-year research project
funded by Cotton Incorporated, the Southern
Region IPM Center and cotton support
committees from Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
The project involved revising action thresholds,
examining the impact of stink bug feeding on
cotton fiber quality, studying stink bug
distribution across the farmscape and
assessing an alternative scouting method.
Cotton Incorporated funded the printing of the
report.
Project leaders from five states were involved:
Ames Herbert, Virginia Tech; Eric Blinka,
Monsanto; Jack Bacheler and John Van Duyn,
North Carolina State University; Jeremy
Greene, Clemson University; Michael Toews
and Phillip Roberts, University of Georgia; and
Ron Smith, Auburn University. Private
consultants and local growers often assisted
the scientists in locating stink bug infested
fields and allowed them to conduct tests in
those fields.
Cotton is most vulnerable to economic
injury during the third to fifth week of bloom.
•
Experts developed a “dynamic” threshold
that changed by week of bloom. Insecticide
applications made by following those
thresholds resulted in the highest net
returns compared with the currently used
“static” thresholds—from $7.00 to $34.00
per acre depending on the level of pest
pressure.
•
Stink bug feeding does not reduce fiber
quality when thresholds are correctly
applied; however, stink bugs can reduce
fiber quality when they are poorly managed.
•
Examining bolls for evidence
of external feeding damage
may save consultants time in
assessing threshold levels,
and spatial assessments
show that early insecticide
treatments along the field perimeter may
lower damage potential.
The report is available at no cost. For copies,
please contact the expert in your state. If you
are in a different state, contact Ames Herbert at
Virginia Tech.
Contacts for report:
Alabama:
Ron Smith, Auburn University,
[email protected] or 334-844-6394
The trials and analyses over the
three-year period provided these
conclusions:
Georgia
Phillip Roberts, University of Georgia,
[email protected] or 229-386-3424
•
North Carolina
Jack Bacheler, NC State University,
[email protected] or 919-515-8877
Stink bugs pose more of a
threat than plant bugs because
damage symptoms indicate that
stink bug populations are much
higher than plant bug
populations.
•
•
Brown stink bugs are common to all states,
while green stink bugs populate primarily
North Carolina and Virginia, and southern
green stink bugs populate primarily
Georgia.
South Carolina
Jeremy Greene, Clemson University,
[email protected] or (803) 284-3343
Virginia
Ames Herbert, Virginia Tech, [email protected] or
(757) 657-6450 ext. 411
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
Page 6
Southern Region Crop Profiles and PMSPs
September 2008 to September 2009
Crop Profiles completed
• Florida atemoya and sugar apple
(revised)
• Florida carambola (revised)
• Florida citrus (minor) (revised)
• Florida cotton
• Florida guava and wax jambu (revised)
• Florida lychee and longan (revised)
• Florida mamey sapote and sapodilla
(revised)
• Florida mango (revised)
• Florida mango (revised)
• Florida papaya (revised)
•
•
•
•
•
Florida pecans (revised)
Oklahoma sod and turf
Oklahoma sorghum
Texas cotton (revised)
Texas sorghum
Pest Management Strategic Plans completed
• Snap beans (VA, DE, NC)
• Spinach (Texas)
IPM Elements
• Honeybees (Mid-Atlantic states)
ipmPIPE Update Sept. 30, 2009
season to support to concentrate SBR monitoring in critical
southern (Tier 1) and mid-south
(Tier 2) states. These funds will be exhausted by December 2009.
Overview:
The ipmPIPE continues without any assurance
of new funding for the future. Operations for
2009 have been covered by a combination of
previously allotted Federal funds, Soybean
Check-off funding, state-level funding by grower
associations, and in-kind contributions by land
grant universities.
•
Remnant funds for Soybean Aphid (SBA)
were reconfigured to provide monitoring in
key SBA states in 2009. These funds will be
exhausted by December 2009.
•
The Cucurbit Downy Mildew (CDM) component was entirely funded through a competitive process with these funds. It continues
for another year but its budget does not include support for field monitoring in 2010.
Funding in hand:
A series of 3 tripartite agreements among
USDA-RMA, USDA_NIFA (formerly CSREES)
and North Carolina State University originally
supported all aspects of the ipmPIPE. Starting
in September 2005, the first of these projects
($2.2m) ended in March of 2008.
The second project ($3.2m), begun in September 2006, terminated September 2009. We used
the last remnants of funds to provide a few
months of IT and programming support.
The third agreement ($4.6 m) was initiated in
September 2007.
•
Funds for general IT and programming support from this agreement have been exhausted.
•
Remnant funds from subcontracts to state
Extension specialists for soybean rust (SBR)
were reconfigured after the 2008 growing
• The pecan nut casebearer component was
funded at approximately half of the original
request through a competitive process with
these funds. It continues for another year.
This project received some additional support
from RMA funds in 2009 to address elements
of the reduced initial funding.
For several years the Soybean Check-off
(United Soybean Board and North Central Soybean Research Program) has provided significant funding to support SBR monitoring – min
2009, $364,000. This is currently only identified
source of funding to support a national SBR
monitoring project in 2010. These grower
Continued on next page
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
Page 7
ipmPIPE Update (continued)
Check-off sources have tentatively committed to
fund the SBR monitoring program again in 2010,
but that decision and the level of support will not
be confirmed until mid-December.
USDA-NIFA provided about $175,000 for IT and
programming and expects to continue that support in 2010.
USDA-RMA allotted $500,000 that was finally
distributed by USDA in September. Most of these
funds will pay for 2009 (that is correct, 2009)
monitoring for the legume component, with state
contracts managed by Rick Melnicoe at UC
Davis (WIPMC). A small amount - $70,000 – is
slated for communications and other coordination
through 2010 and will be managed by Jim
VanKirk at NCSU (SRIPMC). The remainder will
be used for programming and IT. We have received no encouragement to expect further RMA
funding.
New Federal Funding:
SBA: The SBA component has proven useful to
entomologists in many states and through them
to growers. Leadership of this component including the S1039, Biology, impact, and management
of soybean insect pests in soybean production
systems multi-state committee has begun to consider ways to effectively wind this ipmPIPE component down. No future funding has been identified.
Legume: The 2009 season was covered by the
most recent USDA-RMA funds. Proposals for
funding from SCRI were unsuccessful in both
2008 and 2009. No new funding for 2010 and
beyond has been identified.
CDM: The CDM PIPE has been very successful
at developing a network and presenting information online in new and innovative ways. Leadership is pursuing sustainable funding, perhaps to
include proposal submissions to one or more
RFAs.
USDA-NIFA expects to be able to fund support of
IT and programming at a significantly reduced
level from previous years, but comparable to
2009.
The original plan for this component did not include funding to support field monitoring in 2010,
and no such funding has been identified yet. The
current plan is to use research and other plots
voluntarily monitored by collaborators and cooperators.
No funds are explicitly mentioned for ipmPIPE in
the budgets passed by the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees for the next fiscal
year. Both of these do include significantly increased funding for AFRI, along with possible
increased requirement for use in extension or
integrated projects. This offers some hope for
applicability to ipmPIPE.
Pecan: The Pecan PIPE has made significant
strides in developing and providing an information network addressing the key insect pest pecan nut casebearer. Recently the team has considered integrating pecan scab information. The
project was funded at a significant reduced
amount from the original proposal and has since
added $45,000 from the most recent RMA outlay.
We have no expectation of new RMA funding.
Components:
SBR: Sustainability continues to be an issue in
light of declining USDA funding. At the NCERA
208 meeting in September, the group agreed to
submit a proposal to the Soybean Check-off to
support monitoring in Tier 1 states where the
pathogen overwinters. They expect that this will
be supplemented with state grower association
funds in many states. Monitoring in Tier 2 and
Tier 3 states will receive no support from the national program and are entirely dependent upon
state grower associations and other support
mechanisms. These adjustments all are relate
not only to decreasing national funds but also to
greater emphasis on predictive models and regional spore trapping finds.
Southern corn rust (NEW). Bob Kemerait (UGA)
has spearheaded an effort to present the Southern corn rust (Puccinia polysora) ipmPIPE. He
was able to use state funds to pay for initial web
design, etc. with ZedX, and is currently recruiting
other state specialists.
NCipmPIPE (NEW): Darren Meuller of Iowa State
reports success with a 2-year, $50,000 grant
from EPA for the North Central ipmPIPE. Mike
Greifenkamp (University of Illinois) will provide
web design, management, etc. At the start the
project will focus on Western bean cutworm,
black cutworm, and possibly soybean aphid.
Southern Region IPM Center Annual Update
IPM in the News
The following articles about Southern region IPM projects have appeared in national or state
publications:
“Resistance is Futile,” American/Western Fruit Grower, February 2009 (Project: Prescription
Brown Rot Management in Peach Based on Site-Specific Fungicide Resistance Profiles in
Monilinia Fructicola, Guido Schnabel, Clemson University, 2006 S-RIPM grant)
“Ludwig Honored with Award,” TNLA Green, March 2009 (Friends of IPM Award, Scott
Ludwig)
“An IPM Specialist Makes the Grade,” Pest Management Professional, March 2009 (Friends of
IPM Award, Chris Mills)
“Breeding a better Christmas tree: NCSU researchers seek to battle the adelgids,”
Perspectives, Summer 2009 (Project: Host Resistance to Balsam Woolly Adelgid in an IPM
Strategy for Christmas Trees)
“A Pest Free Process,” American School & University, July 2009 (About the IPM and Green
Schools workshop, Southern Region School IPM working group)
“House-infesting brown dog tick becoming resistant to common pesticides, UF experts say,”
University of Florida News, September 23, 2009 (Project: Improving management of the brown
dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus, in Southeastern residential environments, Phil Kaufman,
University of Florida, 2009 S-RIPM grant)
Publications
Toth, S. J., Jr. 2009. Book Review: Integrated Pest Management: Concepts, Tactics,
Strategies and Case Studies. Edward B. Radcliffe, William D. Hutchinson, and Rafael E.
Cancelado, editors. Integrative and Comparative Biology 2009; doi: 10.1093/icb/icp047. 2 pp.
Fell, R. D., H. Gatton, D. Tarpy, S. J. Toth, Jr. and M. J. Weaver. 2009. IPM Elements for
Honey Bees in the Mid-Atlantic States. 6 pp.
Advisory Council Member Changes
SRIPMC has several new members on its Advisory Council:
Ronald Diem, SYSCO Corporation
Keith Douce, Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health
Michelle Foo, IR-4 Project, University of Florida
Fudd Graham, Southern Region School IPM Working Group
Doug Johnson, Kentucky IPM Coordinator
Jim Criswell, Oklahoma State Contact
Page 8