Help IR-4 Understand How Certain Pesticides for Minor Crops Fit into an IPM Program

To support specialty crops and specialty crop growers, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture sponsors the IR-4 Program, which helps get needed pesticides licensed when there isn't a large enough market to attract a major manufacturer.

Like the regional IPM Centers, IR-4 also has regions, and the Western Region is setting priorities now and gathering comments on how well the different chemicals fit into an integrated pest management approach. For instance, is a certain product less harmful to beneficial insects? Does it help in resistance management? Can its application timing be adjusted to avoid times when bees or other beneficials are active?

There are a couple of ways to add your input. First, visit the priority-setting page on the Western Region IR-4 website. On that page, you’ll see links about IPM fit for the region’s top priorities, and in the yellow box, other links to all the chemicals proposed for consideration, both regionally and nationally. If you have comments about the IPM compatibility of a product, or want to make a case that a specific product should be a high priority, contact the Western Region IR-4 Coordinator Rebecca Sisco by email or phone at 530.752.7634.

If you work with a Western IPM Center Comment Coordinator, you can also provide feedback directly to them. 

Our Comment Coordinators are:

Cathy Tarutani - Hawaii and the Pacific Basin Territories

Al Fournier - Arizona, Nevada, desert regions of California, and New Mexico

Jane Thomas - California and the Pacific Northwest including Alaska and Montana 

If You Haven't Seen Arizona's Regular Vegetable IPM Update, Check it Out Here

Getting useful pest information out to growers when they need it is critical to helping them adopt good pest management practices. And that's exactly what the University of Arizona's Vegetable IPM Update does. 

The Update is a year round, bi-weekly advisory that provides timely, practical and science-based pest management information about high-value produce, melon and other vegetable crops. 

Each update contains a short piece on insect, weed and disease management, written in an informal and direct style, often with links to audio and video files, extension publications or reports. 

More than 450 users get the Update on their smartphones or email, and the information is also re-distributed by the Western Farm Press, Western Agri-Radio Network and other media outlets, reaching tens of thousands of subscribers all told. 

The updates are developed by the Vegetable Crops Team  of John Palumbo, Mike Matheron, Barry Tickes and Kurt Nolte, who are located in Yuma, one of the world’s most productive regions for leafy vegetables, brassicas, and melon crops, and are coordinated by Assistant in Extension Marco Peña. They've produced more than 80 updates since the program started in 2010, and more than 90 video or audio files from past updates are archived online. Check 'em out!

Latest Veg IPM Update: http://ag.arizona.edu/crops/vegetables/advisories/advisories.html

Archive of Past Updates: http://ag.arizona.edu/crops/vegetables/advisories/archive.html

Video Archive: http://ag.arizona.edu/crops/vegetables/videos.html

Know an IPM Innovator? Nominate Them for Recognition

The parks department in our town won an Innovator Award in 2008.

Know a farmer, school, company, city,  housing authority or any other public or private entity in California who is embracing integrated pest management? Are you one yourself? If so, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation wants to hear about you.

Every year, the department presents several IPM Innovator awards, and the deadline to be considered for a 2013 award is July 1. Here's what the department says:

"IPM Innovators typically rely on pest management systems based on sound scientific principles of IPM, including a preference  for using beneficial organisms and cultural practices for pest control when feasible. Pest problems are addressed as part of the overall situation, rather than pest by pest or at only one time of the year. 

IPM Innovators often conduct research to find new ways for managing pests. This may include a range of activities from contracted research with academic institutions to on-site trials of participant-identified techniques."

Learn more, and access the online nomination form, here: http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/pestmgt/ipminov/innovatr.htm

Landscape Trade Press Promotes Western IPM Center's Water Quality Training Material

Trade publications for professional landscapers are helping spread the work about the free training material the Western IPM Center created to help protect water sources from pesticide contamination.

In the past week, both Landscape Management and Green Industry Pros, two of the top trade publications in the industry, have published stories about the training material and links to the slide sets.

Since mid-May, the training modules have been downloaded by folks in Montana, Hawaii, New York, Iowa, Florida, Pennsylvania, Washington state and Washington D.C., California, Idaho, Wisconsin and Oregon.

Thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word. The three slide sets, focused at professional landscapers, ag users or home gardeners, can be downloaded at www.wripmc.org. Look under the Useful Resources heading.