Western Front Newsletter

Western Integrated Pest Management Center

Fall 2013

 

Western Center Promotes Urban IPM

Three projects bring IPM to schools, homes and communities

Integrated pest management isn’t just for  agriculture. The very principles that make  IPM an effective and less-hazardous way  to manage pests in our fields can also be  used to safely control insects, mice and  other pests in our homes, schools and  offices. 

The Western IPM Center promotes  community IPM by regularly funding  new research and outreach efforts to make  schools and all types of housing safer for  children and families. Here are highlights  of three recent projects: 

 

Mice in Schools 

Mice have been linked to health risks,  including asthma, and in 2010 were the  second most-reported pest in Oregon  schools. So the Northwest Center for  Alternatives to Pesticides applied for  a Western IPM Center grant to teach  school facilities managers how to use IPM  techniques to control mice.  The result was three mouse-control  videos available on YouTube that have not  only been distributed to the vast majority  of Oregon school districts, but are being  viewed and used by public housing  providers, public health nurses and others  in and out of Oregon. 

“The feedback has been great,” said  Northwest Center Environmental Health  Associate Aimee Code, a co-project  director with Tim Stock of Oregon State  University Extension. “We’ve heard from  a number of custodians and facilities  managers this is exactly what they need,  and when they have a mouse problem they  learn how to solve it.” 

The three videos in the series focus on  exclusion (keeping mice out), sanitation  and trapping. They present the information  in a straightforward manner with narration,  images and interviews. 

“People really like the simple,  straightforward nature of the video,” Code  said. “They didn’t want an actor, didn’t  want a storyline. They just wanted the  information, the straight facts.” 

A sample of those facts:  • Place mousetraps along mouse  corridors three to five feet apart,  with the snap bar facing the wall.  • Because mice are curious, place traps one night, then remove them  for a week. Repeat as needed.  • Jam makes an excellent bait. 

“One thing that struck me was just how  small a space can allow a mouse to get into  a school,” Code said. “A missing doorsweep  is all it takes, or a dime-sized hole.” 

View the videos at the Sustainable  Places Information Network website at  www.sustainableplaces.org/category/  videos 

 

IPM in Public Housing 

Public housing presents unique pest management  challenges, including rapid  turnover of residents, language and  cultural barriers and even second-hand  clothing and furniture.  And those pest problems – especially  when bed bugs are involved – can lead  residents to resort to some pretty drastic  and harmful pest control strategies. 

“Some people are using gasoline on  their mattresses,” said the University  of Arizona’s Dawn Gouge, the project  leader of the Western IPM Center’s IPM  in Public Housing

To help residents address pest issues in  a far safer way, Gouge and the project  team conducted 13 trainings for public  housing residents and managers in Oregon,  Washington, Arizona and Colorado,  teaching folks IPM principles they can  use to keep bugs out of their homes and  manage any that get in.  During the trainings, the team learned as  much about reaching their target audience  as public housing residents and managers  learned about integrated pest management.  And Gouge and her colleagues used those  lessons to develop more effective ways to  teach IPM to a public housing audience as  the project progressed. 

“We knew there would be language  barriers, for instance,” she said. “But we  learned that doing separate presentations for different language groups is much  more effective than a mixed audience.” 

Other lessons:  • The message for the residents and  managers doesn’t need to differ all  that much.  • Online resources aren’t much help  because relatively few people have  Internet access.  • Complex lectures with wordy slides  are boring. Interactive presentations,  demonstrations and giveaways  generate a lot more excitement.  • Live bugs rule. (Just keep them  contained!) 

“It’s when I started bringing live  specimens that we got the ‘ah-ha’  moments,” Gouge said. “Even if it was just  three or four specimens – that’s when you  really get people.” 

Another thing the team learned is that in  the urban pest hierarchy, bed bugs are king and queen. Even if more hazardous insects  are present, getting rid of bed bugs is the  top priority. 

“I’m convinced you can hold up a bank  with a bed bug,” Gouge said. “That’s how  afraid of them people are.”  In fact, at one presentation, a resident  brought in bugs from her home she thought  were bed bugs. When Gouge told her  they were young German cockroaches,  the woman left – even though German  cockroaches are linked to health issues like  asthma.  To help people avoid bedbugs, the team  created a very picture-heavy presentation  about bed bugs to help people identify  them, find where they hide and keep them  out of their homes.  Download the bed bug presentation at  wripmc.org. Look under “Western IPM  Center Project Websites” for the link.

 

IPM Implementation and  Assessment in Schools

Both pests and pesticides in schools can  pose a health risk to children, so promoting  IPM practices in schools is doubly important. The Western IPM Center has  been funding a School IPM Implementation  and Assessment Work Group for several  years, to develop regional resources and  promote school IPM. 

“We’d been building a regional network,  website and resources, and needed to do  a project,” explained Washington State  University’s Urban IPM Director Carrie  Foss, the project leader. “We decided to  develop a curriculum and pilot training for  outdoor school IPM.”

The group developed its materials and  conducted the pilot training in Salt Lake  City in September 2012. The training  covered basic IPM principles, turf  management, pest diagnosis, common  pests and their control strategies, pesticide  safety and a tour of a nearby school.  The trainers were Foss, Oregon State’s  Tim Stock, Ryan Davis from Utah State  and Deborah Young, the IPM coordinator  at Colorado State University. Gregg Smith,  facilities director at Salt Lake City School  District, hosted the pilot training. Twenty seven  people attended, representing five of  Utah’s biggest school districts with some  170,000 students. 

“We asked the group what worked and  what didn’t work, and the local, specific  information is what they valued the most,”  Foss said. “They wanted IPM strategies  for pests specific to their area.” 

The school IPM team members took that  lesson, and are adapting the curriculum for  their specific regions and audiences.  In that, the school IPM curriculum is  similar to another recent Western IPM  Center product, water quality training  material that shows people how to  protect water sources from pesticide  contamination. The basic curriculum  provides a backbone for local trainers to  adapt and individualize for their particular  area and audience, and Foss sees the  outdoor school IPM curriculum working  the same way. 

“It has to be adapted and modified for the  specific area where it’s being used,” she  said. “That’s what will make it useful.”  The Western IPM Center continues to  promote community IPM. See the list of  2013 funded projects on page 3. 

 

A Western IPM Center Signature Program

Invasive Species Group Develops Coordination Guidelines

When an invasive species is first detected  in an area, the initial response is critical.  Like with a cancer, the correct early  detection and response can make a big  difference in controlling the spread and  severity of the outbreak. 

To help make that initial response as  effective as possible, the Western IPM  Center Invasive Species Signature Program  is developing protocols for invasive  weeds, insects and diseases. Subgroups  focused on each area are developing those  protocols, using current invasive species  issues as models. 

The plant pathogen subgroup selected  Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum,  transmitted by psyllids, which causes zebra  chip disease of potato and vein greening  of tomato. The University of Arizona’s  Judith Brown, School of Plant Sciences, is  leading the subgroup. 

“Our charge was four-fold,” she said.  “Get the group together and set priorities  and goals. Second, draft an invasive  species plan that could serve as a model  for other invasive pathogen introductions  or emergences. Third, hold a symposium  to raise awareness and connect with other  scientists and stakeholders in the region, and fourth, pursue possibilities for funding  to study the problem in greater detail, given that it is a new vector-pathogen  complex that is associated with diseases in  a number of solanaceous crops.” 

The first three of those goals have been  achieved, and the group’s draft document,  “Guidelines for Forming and Conducting  a Local or Regional Invasive Species  Coordinating Group,” is available on the  Western IPM Center website. Photos  from the symposium, held at the American  Phytopathological Society’s Joint  Caribbean-Pacific Division meeting in  June, will be posted there as well. 

In many states, Brown said, the  relationships between the university and  experiment station scientists involved  in pathology, weed science, entomology  and abiotic stress research and the state  and regional regulatory agencies are not  as strong as they should be to detect and  respond to invasive species and other  kinds of outbreaks that could be disastrous  to agriculture. 

“We recognized some years ago in Arizona  that we didn’t have relationships between  all of the groups that would respond to an invasive species,” Brown said. “So now  our Arizona Plant Diagnostic Network,  which is a member of the National Plant  Diagnostic Network, meets twice a year  so everybody knows each other and has  the opportunity to share observations and  information about potential new problems  involving invasive species, as well as  resurgent endemic problems.” 

The draft guidelines outline generally  the ideal makeup of the coordinating  group, the activities and responsibilities  of members, and offers protocols for  detection, response and mitigation,  and recovery. It also highlights various challenges invasive species coordinating  groups may encounter and offers some  possible solutions. 

“The next step could be to test the draft  plan using a recent invasive species,  such as the citrus greening pathogen, Ca.  Liberibacter asiaticus, to identify gaps,  make necessary revisions and identify  aspects that could be improved or done  better, ” said Brown. 

See the guidelines and other resources  on the Invasive Species Signature  Program webpage at wripmc.org. Look  under “Western IPM Center Project  Websites” for the invasive species link. 

 

Director’s Perspective – Jim Farrar

Roof Rats Bring the IPM Message Home in a Hurry

I recently learned firsthand about urban  vertebrate integrated pest management –  specifically trying to get roof rats out of  my home.  As a result of becoming the Center  director, I relocated my family from  Fresno to Davis, California.

We purchased  a small, 60-year-old bungalow and soon  discovered there were other occupants  already living in the attic and ample  evidence that they had been residents for  a long time.  Roof rats, which I now know are common  in Davis, had found a way into the attic  and taken up residence. As an aside, pest  inspections for home sales in California  only focus on pests that can cause the  house to fall down, such as termites and  wood-rotting fungi. Pests that merely  give homeowners the heebie jeebies by  scratching around in the attic early in the  morning do not count.  The scientific name of roof rats (also  called black rats) is Rattus rattus, making  them one of the few organisms whose  genus name and species epithet are the  same word. Roof rats are smaller than  Norway rats and their tails are longer  than their bodies. They are nocturnal and  omnivorous but prefer fruit, nuts and  berries.

Fortunately for them, our neighbor  has an enormous mulberry tree so they are  well fed.  We did want  not to use  anti-coagulant  rat poisons  because of  the potential  for secondary  poisoning of  cats and owls.  Some Davis  residents put  up owl boxes  in trees to  encourage owl nesting in town. Since  anti-coagulants kill by causing internal  bleeding several days after the rats eat a  lethal dose of poison, debilitated rats could  be caught and eaten by neighborhood cats  and owls.  One of the first anti-coagulants,  warfarin, was named after the Wisconsin  Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) at  University of Wisconsin, my alma mater.  WARF was initially established to patent  the process for adding vitamin D to milk  by using UV radiation. It later funded the  research that  resulted in  the discovery  and patenting  of warfarin,  thereby   returning  money to  WARF to fund  more research.  The real  money in anticoagulants  is in  their low-dose use as medicine to treat or  prevent blood clots as opposed to the high dose  use as vertebrate pest poisons. 

Since we decided anti-coagulant poison  baits would be a last resort, an IPM  combination of exclusion and trapping  seemed prudent. I put new hardware cloth  in the gable vents and trapped three rats  but it was not enough. We still heard rats  every morning. Since my attempts at do-it yourself  exclusion and trapping failed, we  sought professional help. 

The company we selected provided  a comprehensive package consisting  of plugging all exterior openings to the  house with either mortar or hardware  cloth, vacuum removal of all soiled attic  insulation, disinfecting spray of attic  surfaces, installation of new insulation,  and a one-year guarantee.  The price was several  thousand dollars, but the  combination of removing  the creepiness factor of  rats above our heads and  brand new R38 insulation  made it an easy decision. 

The first two rounds of  plugging holes failed since  rats can find openings  more easily than humans  can. The third time the  exclusion team succeeded  in blocking all the rat entrances into our  home. Exclusion of rats has the corollary  of inclusion of any rats already inside.  Since roof rats are nocturnal, at least one  was sealed into the attic and later perished,  probably from lack of food and water.  My background is in diseases of  agricultural plants, so dealing with a  vertebrate pest in an urban setting has  been quite an education. However, I found  the basic principles of integrated pest  management apply regardless of pest or  setting. 

 

Cutting the budget while preserving the Center’s vital functions

I know I’m not alone in my lack  of interest in the budget challenges  of groups supported by tax dollars,  so I’ll keep this short.

The Western  IPM Center is funded by the USDA’s  National Institute of Food and  Agriculture. Congress reduced their  budget, so ours went down too. Here’s  how we dealt with that $73,716 cut. 

My goal in absorbing the cut was  to protect the core functions of the  Center: coordinating responses to  requests for comment from EPA, our  three Signature Programs, and the  Center grants program.  A portion of the budget reduction  came through reduced indirect  charges (smaller budget means  smaller indirect) from the University  of California. Some of the reduction  was offset by the lower salaries of  new, more junior-ranking Center staff  as compared to the previous staff. The  remainder was taken from the Center  travel budget and a small amount  from the Center grants program.  Because of the reduced travel, I  will not meet in-person with as many  stakeholders throughout the West  next year, but I will use electronic  communication to stay in touch. 

Advisory & Steering Committees 

There are some changes to the  Advisory and Steering Committees.  On paper, members of both  committees serve three-year terms. In  practice, committee members served  until they wanted to step down. This  year I am beginning staggered one-to- three-years terms for each member  so all of the present members don’t  term out at the same time. I will be  seeking new Advisory and Steering  Committee members to replace those  who term out. If you are interested  in volunteering or in volunteering  someone else, please contact me.  Finally, one direction from the  Steering Committee at our June  meeting was to increase ag industry  representation. I will follow that  guidance as I recruit new members. 

 

2013 Center Grants Show the West’s Great Diversity

From Microdochium patch on putting  greens to powdery mildew on hops to  Iris yellow spot virus in onions; from  training health inspectors in school  IPM to determining if cattle grazing  and bio-control insects can control  spotted knapweed, the Western IPM  Center’s 2013 funded grants cover a  wide range of Western states and pest  issues.

“One of the most interesting and  challenging aspects of the West  from a Center perspective is the  diversity of not only its agriculture,  but its geography, environment and  lifestyles,” said Western IPM Center  Director Jim Farrar. “We have  applications coming in from both  Alaska and Hawaii, and from people  working with grazing land in Montana  and high-density housing in Portland.” 

For the West, that diversity is par for  the course.  Of the 41 proposals received and reviewed by the evaluation committee, here are the grants funded by the Western IPM Center  in the 2013 competitive grants cycle. 

Outreach and Publications

Training health inspectors in school IPM

Aimee Code, Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides

 

Integrated pest management guide for medusahead in the Western United States

Joseph DiTomaso, University of California Davis

 

Promoting IPM to urban audiences through YouTube

Mary Louise Flint, University of California Davis

 

IPM for low-income residents: Stopping harmful self treatment for bed bugs

Josh Vincent, Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides

 

IPM curriculum for elementary school teachers in the West 2013-2014

Deborah Young, Colorado State University

Work Groups

Western region tribal work group

Nina Hapner, Kashia Band of Pomo Indians of the Steward’s Point Rancheria

 

IPM adoption and impacts assessment work group

Neil McRoberts, University of California Davis

 

Kuskokwim River tribal work group

John Oscar, Kuskokwim River Watershed Council

IPM Issues – Research

Developing IPM components to address emerging virulent strains of the hop powdery mildew fungus

Ann George, Washington Hop Commission

 

Fungicide-free management program for the control of Microdochium patch on putting greens

Alexander Kowalewski, Oregon State University

 

Can high-density cattle grazing be integrated with biocontrol insects to suppress spotted knapweed?

Jeffrey Mosley, Montana State University

 

Effect of micronutrients on Iris yellow spot virus of onion

Claudia Nischwitz, Utah State University

IPM Issues – Outreach and Implementation

Integrating agricultural conservation practices into Idaho and Washington farms

Gwendolyn Ellen, Oregon State University

Pest Management Strategic Plans

Pest Management Strategic Plan for winter wheat in the Western Great Plains

Frank Peairs, Colorado State University

Special Issues

A workshop on maximum residue levels, a critical issue for integrated pest management and international trade of U.S. agricultural products

Lori Berger, California Specialty Crop Council

 

Pest Management Strategic Plan for pears in Oregon and Washington

Joe DiFrancesco, Oregon State University

 

Invasive species and water quality training

John Oscar, Kuskokwim River Watershed Council

 

Water Quality Material Finds a National Audience

The training material produced by the  Western Integrated Pest Management  Center to protect water sources from  pesticides is being used not just in the  West, but across the country. 

From the Seattle Parks and Recreation  Department to a golf course near Sarasota,  Florida, the water quality training slides  are reaching a wide and diverse audience. 

The slides were created through a  Western IPM Center signature project  to protect water quality. The authors  developed separate training modules for  homeowners, professional landscapers  and agricultural applicators and the Center  made them available for free on our  website. 

“The idea was that people would adapt  the slide sets for their specific audiences  and needs,” said Carrie Foss, Washington  State University’s urban IPM director and  one of the authors. “It’s gratifying to see  that’s exactly what’s happening.” 

After the slides were featured on the cover  of the summer issue of The Western Front  and written about in several agricultural  and landscaping publications, awareness  jumped. They’ve now been downloaded  more than 60 times in 19 U.S. states and  British Columbia. 

Barbara DeCaro is an IPM coordinator  in charge of best management practices  for landscape, horticulture and urban  forestry at the Seattle Parks and Recreation  Department. She learned about the slides  through Landscape Management Magazine  and plans to use them in multiple trainings.

“All municipalities are looking at how to  protect and maintain storm-water quality  and train staff in a way that institutionalizes  the information and also fosters personal  responsibility and decision-making to  protect our waterways,” she said. “I  develop and provide training in these areas  and see incorporating the slides as part of  that training.” 

Marcus Duck, an academic specialist  and program coordinator in horticulture  at Michigan State University, is updating  his landscape maintenance and irrigation  courses with information from the slides. 

“The images are great and informative  for our students,” he said. 

In Washington, the slides will be  featured in a new gardening website being  developed by an extension team co-led by  the Washington State Pest Management  Resource Service.

“We downloaded the slide set for  homeowners to use in our statewide  gardening web site,” said Catherine H.  Daniels, WSU pesticide coordinator. “The  site is still under development so I can’t  give you any information yet about how the  audience has received it, but my personal  opinion is that the slide set is valuable and  I very much appreciate the work that went  into developing it.” 

And at the opposite end of the country,  Patricia Albertini at the Lakewood Ranch  Golf and Country Club in Florida accessed  the training just for her own education. 

“I downloaded the slides because I’m  always trying to learn more about water  quality,” she said. “Our golf course is  Audubon Certified and we try to eliminate  pesticide use when possible.” 

 

Funding Categories Change for 2014 Center Grants

There are changes coming to the grants provided by  the Western Integrated Pest Management Center.  Instead of six somewhat confusing grant categories –  two of which contained the word “outreach” – there will  now be just four categories.

They are:  • Project initiation grants  • Work group grants  • Outreach and implementation grants  • IPM planning document grants 

The change is both to simplify the grants program and  to direct Center funds where they can do the most good. 

“In the past, we had some research-focused categories,  but didn’t really provide enough funding to carry out a  full research project,” explained Western IPM Center  Director Jim Farrar. “These new categories target the  money where we can make an impact – at the beginning  and end of projects, and bringing groups together to  begin tackling important pest issues.” 

The project initiation, work group and outreach and  implementation grants will all be funded at a maximum  of $30,000 for one year. IPM planning document grants  – which include pest management strategic plans and  crop profiles – will be funded up to $10,000 for one year.  The Center will continue to offer special issues grants  for new or emerging pest threats that arise between grant  cycles, and fund those for up to $5,000 for one year.  The changes to the grants program were debated by the  Western IPM Center Advisory Committee and adopted  by the Center’s Steering Committee in June. They will  take effect with the 2014 grants cycle. 

“This is a change to the way we’ve done things, but  I think it’ll be good for IPM researchers in the West,”  said Farrar. “We just don’t have the dollars available  to fund full research projects, but our project initiation  grants can provide the preliminary, proof-of-concept  data researchers need to secure larger Regional IPM,  Agriculture and Food Research Initiative and EPA grants. 

“And at the back end of projects, our outreach and  implementation grants can help produce the extension  materials, field guides or training programs to get the  best IPM practices identified by new research out to the  people who can use them in the field,” Farrar said. “And  ultimately, that’s what we’re here to do.” 

Details will be available in the Western IPM Center  Request for Applications, which will be posted this fall.  To receive an email when the RFA is released, visit  wripmc.org and click on the “Subscribe” link. 

 

Learn IPM Impact Assessment with New Online Resources

The goals of integrated pest management  are to provide economic benefits and  reduce risks to human health and the  environment. To show new IPM research  is helping achieve those goals, scientists  measure the impacts of their research.  However, many of the agriculture,  natural science and extension scientists  who perform IPM research don’t have  training on how to conduct economic or  social science impact assessments. 

To address this, the Western IPM  Center’s IPM Adoption and Impacts  Assessment Work Group, a collection of  natural and social scientists from across  the country including the other Regional  IPM Centers, created online resources  showing IPM researchers how to conduct  basic impact assessments. 

“The aim is to provide a toolkit that will  allow people who don’t have training  in impact assessment methods to do  basic impact assessments,” said Neil  McRoberts, a plant pathologist at UC  Davis who coordinates the group. “We  recognize that impacts can be measured in  lots of different ways – economic impacts,  changes in social networks, or changes in environmental effects – and that different  approaches will be relevant in different  contexts. So the aim is to provide people  with the means to do a range of different  types, at an introductory level.” 

The online resources include an  introduction to impact assessment, and  modules on surveys, economic analysis,  social network analysis, focus groups and observation data. Chapters within each  module include when a measurement or  method is appropriate, what to collect,  how to collect it, how to analyze it and  how to report it. 

“I think the core techniques we’re  suggesting people use are likely to remain  valid for a long time,” said McRoberts,  who stressed that the modules are careful  to warn users when they’ll need to call in  economists or social scientists. “We’re taking pains to define the  limitations of what’s on offer so that  people don’t over-reach,” he said. 

One goal is to get researchers thinking  about impact assessment at the beginning  of their projects so they can include  assessment plans in their initial proposals.  Another benefit is that IPM researchers  will become more proficient in basic social  science methods. 

“We’re hoping that the modules will be  recognized by funders as a viable proxy  for having actual economists or social  scientists do simple impact assessments,”  McRoberts said. “That would help reduce  something of a bottleneck that has been  developing in impact assessment.” 

Instead of social scientists teaching the  basics over and over, it frees up time to  collaborate with IPM researchers with  more sophisticated datasets. 

“We support project directors to better  plan their project assessment,” said Center  Director Jim Farrar. “This effort leverages  social science talent from all regions.” 

Access the assessment training at  wripmc.org. Look for the link under  “Western IPM Center Project Websites.” 

 

Hot Off the Press: New IPM and Pest Guides

A focus of the Western IPM Center  is getting pest and pest-management  information out to the people who most  need it – the growers, land and water  managers, homeowners, school principals  and pest managers throughout the West.  One way to do that is to help fund guides  to specifi c pests or specifi c regions. Here  are three guides published with Western  IPM Center assistance in 2013. 

 

Weed Seedling Identification  Guide for Montana and the  Northern Great Plains 

Rapid and  accurate  identification  of weeds at the  seedling stage can  save producers  and land  managers time  and money while  also and reducing  herbicide  use in the environment because early  identification makes weed management  easier and frees desired plants from  competitive suppression by the weeds.  However, most weed identification  guides only provide information about the  mature stage of the plants.  This 88-page guide published by  Montana State University fills this  information gap for the Northern  Great Plains by presenting photos and  information for dozens of common  grasses and broadleaf weed species.  Each listing includes photographs of the cotyledons, first true leaves, rosettes  (where applicable), mature plants and  seeds. The sturdy, pocket-sized guide  is spiral-bound and color-coded to  help users quickly identify the weed  seedling in question. Order a copy at  www.msuextension.org/store/ 

 

Guide to Montana’s Freshwater  Aquatic Plants 

Aquatic invasive species pose a threat to  the ecology of Western Montana’s aquatic  environments  as well as its  economy, and  most invasive  aquatics are  brought in by  people. Educating  water users and  monitoring highuse  areas are keys  to prevention.  To promote  those efforts,  the Missoula  County Weed  District created  a picture-heavy  key and guide to  the submerged and floating plants of the  Northern Rockies, which was included  as an insert in A Guide to Montana’s  Freshwater Aquatic Plants published by  the Montana Department of Agriculture.  See the guide online at agr.mt.gov/agr/  Programs/Weeds/AquaticWeeds/ The  key is at www.missoulaeduplace.org/  submergedaquaticplantkey.html

 

Field Guide for Integrated  Pest Management in Pacific  Northwest Vineyards 

Published by the  Pacific Northwest  Extension, this fullcolor,  132-page  guide introduces  IPM practices and  covers all aspects  of vineyard pest  management in  an easy-to-read,  spiral-bound book  format. Sections are color-coded to enable  quick flipping to the desired topic, and the  paper is a coated stock that will stand up  to several seasons in the door pocket of a  pickup.  Filled with photos, the guide highlights  the following:  • Resistance management and buffers  • Viticulture practices and IPM  • Insect and mite management  • Beneficial arthropods  • Disease managements  • Nematode management  • Weed management  • Abiotic stresses and disorders, and  vertebrate damage  The Pacific Northwest Extension is a  cooperative venture between Washington  State University, Oregon State University  and the University of Idaho. In addition  to Western IPM Center funding, the  Washington Wine Industry Foundation  also provided support for printing and  distributing the guide.  Order your copy at https://pubs.wsu.edu/ 

 

State News – Arizona

Survey shows IPM adoption levels in schools

Since 2008, the Arizona School IPM Program has been surveying  school districts about their pest management policies and practices.  The 2012 survey obtained information from 428 schools in 76 districts,  covering 405,960 children.

Highlights include:   26% of school districts had adopted IPM policies   20% had written management plans for common pests;  36% used their pest control company’s recommendations   Over 80% of districts did not have an IPM committee and  pest management services were done by contractors   30% had a designated IPM program coordinator at the  school with more than two years of experience   44% tracked the number of pest complaints each year, and  the average number of complaints per district was 45   66% of school districts tracked funds spent on pest management,  and the average amount spent in the last fi scal  year was $8,780   64% tracked pesticide applications in schools or on school  grounds, and the average number of annual applications  per district was 73   Only 2% used IPM curricula or lesson plans for students   65% were interested in receiving an IPM newsletter 

The survey provides valuable data that helps sustain and improve  the program in Arizona. Most importantly, it points towards the  need for sustained and dedicated efforts to ensure the popularization  and implementation of IPM practices.  Intensive outreach campaigns and training workshops are planned  to attract attention from other Arizona schools, with a goal of  increased adoption of IPM practices. 

 

State Update – Alaska

Citizen Scientists Watch for Invasive Pests

To expand the number of eyes watching out for exotic and invasive  pests, the Alaska IPM Program is recruiting “Citizen Scientists” to be on  the lookout for unusual insects, plants and disease organisms throughout  the state.  

“Citizen scientists, or perceptive people, have made some of the  most significant pest detections in recent decades, including the Asian  Longhorn Beetle and other invasive species,” said Gino Graziano, an  invasive species instructor with the program. “Our goal is to educate  individuals who enjoy observing the natural world and are curious  about learning more about what they see.”   

The more citizen scientists looking for insect, plant and disease  organisms throughout our state, Graziano said, the better informed  officials will be on issues that may impact the environment, natural  resources and the state’s food supply.  To make reporting easy, the Alaska IPM Program set up a pest  identification and reporting portal on the web, allowing folks to easily  upload their digital photos of unusual insects and plants. 

“The information submitted is sent to a statewide team who  promptly respond with information regarding the sample,” Graziano  said. “As needed, information can be sent to local or state land  resource managers who quickly respond to potential problems.” 

So far in 2013, citizen scientists have uploaded 30 submissions to  the site, and although none were new species in the state, several  were high-priority weeds, Graziano said.  The Alaska IPM Citizen Monitoring Portal can be found at www.  uaf.edu/ces/ipm/cmp/ 

 

Western IPM Center on Social Media

To enhance communication between the Western IPM Center  and our many stakeholders, we now publish a regular blog and  have an active Twitter feed. 

“The West is a big place and the blog and Twitter account  help us stay in touch,” said Center writer Steve Elliott. “We  highlight new RFAs and Center news, but also use them to  spotlight state activities and publications, and share national  news interesting to an IPM audience.” 

In August, for instance, the blog included a story on  insect movement during desert monsoons, information  about a Northeast IPM Center program called “Stop Pests  in Housing,” a Western IPM Center news story about  our comment coordination service, an introduction to the  Missoula County Extension newsletter, and an overview  of the new EPA labels on neonicotinoids to protect bees. 

Find the blog online at IPMwest.blogspot.com. Follow  us on Twitter at twitter.com/IPMWest  Sign up on our website to receive email updates. Visit  wripmc.org and click on the “Subscribe” link.