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Funded Project

Funding Program: Working Groups

Project Title: Joining forces: Midwest and Western Weather Work Groups for national harmonization of weather-based decision tools

Project Directors (PDs): Mark Gleason [1] Hayley Nelson [2]

Lead State: Lead Organization: Iowa State University

Cooperating State(s): Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin

Undesignated Funding: $20,000

Start Date: Mar-01-2015 End Date: Feb-29-2016

Area of Emphasis: Weather

Summary: Implementation of weather-driven IPM systems for crop diseases and arthropod pests has been hindered by start-and-stop efforts to provide access to reliable weather data and decision-support tools. As a result, scores of promising and well-validated warning systems remain locked up in the IPM toolbox. The Midwest Weather Working Group (MWWG) and the Western Weather Working Group (WWWG) propose to develop a united plan to harmonize each groups strategies in order to overcome these obstacles and make weather-based IPM advisories readily available to specialty-crop growers nationally over the long term. To accomplish this ambitious goal we propose to hold a 2.5-day-long workshop in August 2015 to bring together 30 of the nations leaders in weather-based plant modeling (many of whom have attended previous MWWG and WWWG meetings). To fund the workshop, parallel proposals are being submitted in both the Western Region and the North Central Region. The outcomes of the workshop will be to: 1) share and compare current online platforms for weather-based decision support; 2) assess capability gaps and potential for harmonization of these systems to make them more interactive with each other and more widely available to state and national decision support systems; 3) publish a joint White Paper proposing an action plan; and 4) collaboratively write a USDA-NIFA-CAP proposal to the SCRI program in 2016 to fill these capability gaps, harmonize standards and platforms where possible, assess stakeholder viewpoints on using these shared resources, and advance the science of weather-based IPM decision aids. These outcomes will advance each NCIPMC desired outcome for Working Groups by improving cross-disciplinary and multi-crop understanding of IPM issues while increasing IPM knowledge; increasing adoption of IPM practices, making knowledge sharing cheaper and easier, and mitigating economic, environmental, and human health impacts. We will also meet NCIPMC priorities for conducting environmental, economic, and risk assessments of IPM practices, IPM research and outreach for fruit and vegetable crops, overcoming impediments to IPM adoption, and developing regional predictive pest models and economic thresholds. We will build on the trans-disciplinary networking and significant accomplishments of the WWWG and MWWG over the past 8 years to reshape implementation of weather-based IPM decision support on a national scale for decades to come. Deliverables for the North Central Region will include more effective and convenient technology transfer of weather-based IPM decision aids for thousands of fruit and vegetable growers, savings of millions of dollars in input costs due to wide-scale reduction on pesticide use, a greater margin of worker and consumer safety from less pesticide use, and  as a result - more robust rural communities in the Region. Objectives: Objective 1. Organize a joint 2.5-day-long meeting of the Midwest Weather Working Group (MWWG) and the Western Weather Working Group (WWWG) in August 2015 to begin planning for a) a White Paper summarizing the current status and future needs for national implementation of weather-based IPM decision tools, and b) a 2016 CAP grant proposal to USANIFA-SCRI that will involve leadership from members of each group. Objective 2. Use the meeting to a) reach consensus on CAP proposal objectives, b) secure commitments for co-writing and editing the White Paper and CAP proposal, and b) secure commitments for leadership roles in the project if it is funded.

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