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Funded Project |
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Funding Program:
Regional IPM Competitive Grants - Northeastern |
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Project Title:
Improving the Environmental Impact Quotient: Evaluating Pesticides for Their Impact on Beneficial Organisms |
Project Directors (PDs):
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Lead State: NY Lead Organization: Cornell University |
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Cooperating State(s):
Ohio |
| Extension Funding: $35,529 |
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Start Date: Sep-01-2001 End Date: Aug-31-2003 |
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Area of Emphasis: biological control, biocontrol |
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Summary:
The Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ), an equation divided into Consumer, Farmworker, and Environmental effects of pesticides, was published in 1992 to enable farmers and agricultural professionals to compare pesticides on the basis of environmental risk. It has been widely used for this purpose by farmers, food processors, private consultants and those who analyze and compare pesticide use patterns over time. It has been updated regularly as new pesticides are registered. Most of the information used in the EIQ equation is available from pesticide manufacturers since it is required for registration. One piece of information critical to pest mangers that is not required and is not readily available is the impact of the pesticide on beneficial organisms. A database on beneficial arthropods from 1988 was used to develop the EIQ and it has not been updated since. Companies registering new pesticides are not required to develop this information for registration. We propose to devise a standardized technique to test pesticides against key beneficial organisms and test those pesticides currently listed in the EIQ plus several recently registered pesticides. We then plan to update the EIQ and make it available to users via the already heavily visited website and through professional meetings.
PROBLEM, BACKGROUND, AND JUSTIFICATION Comparing the environmental impact of pesticides has been a difficult issue for many years. A number of attempts at comparison have been made over the years, some more successful than others. Levitan et al (1995) has reviewed some of the various methods of comparison. One of the most cited and used methods of comparison is the Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) developed by Kovach et al (1992). The EIQ is an index that compares commonly used pesticides on the basis of three broad categories - Consumer effects, Farmworker effects, and Biological effects. Within these three categories various pesticide toxicity characteristics, properties in soil and water, and other data are indexed into a logical system resulting in an overall index or EIQ. The EIQ can then be used in combination with the percent active ingredient in a pesticide formulation and the rate used to calculate a Field Use EIQ. A farmer can use the Field Use EIQ to make a decision among several choices of pesticides that have differing environmental impact. This information has been available on the internet for several years and is updated annually to include recently registered pesticides (http://northeastipm.org/ny/program_news/EIQ.html). The EIQ has also been widely cited and is used in many states in the US and internationally. Over 10,000 copies of the original hardcopy EIQ publication have been distributed upon request since 1992 and the EIQ website currently gets about 400 visits per month. It is used in several state pesticide recommendation documents - a field use EIQ value is reported for every listed pesticide in the New York State Integrated Crop and Pest Management Guidelines for Commercial Vegetable Production (Reiners et al 2000, Petzoldt et al 2000). Studies of the impact of IPM have used the EIQ as a method to quantify the impact of changes in pesticide use (Stivers 2000, Suckling et al 1999, Bellinder et al 1998, Cooley et al 1996, Hoffmann et al 1995 ). Modifications to the EIQ for specific uses have been developed or are underway for turf (Kovach, personal communication) and in commercial settings (Stemilt, Reed personal communication.) Most of the information that is used in the EIQ is relatively easy to obtain from pesticide manufacturers because they are required to submit it to the EPA for registration of the pesticide. One key item is not contained in the set of information - impact on beneficial arthropods. A large database from Thieling and Croft (1988) summarized studies of pesticide impacts on beneficial arthropods. This database was used in the development of the EIQ for the beneficial arthropod term. However, since the database is from 1988, no pesticides labeled in the recent past have this information available. EPA does not require information on impact on beneficial arthropods for product registration. Therefore as the EIQ has been updated, this piece of information has been treated as "missing" and an average of the value for all pesticides has instead been inserted into the EIQ calculation. In addition, the impact of pesticides on beneficial organisms other than just arthropods needs to be considered in the EIQ index. Currently, little information on impacts of a diverse array of pesticides on beneficial fungi is available. There is a need to consider the impacts of various types of pesticide applications on the growth of such commercially available fungi as Trichoderma harzianum and Beauavaria bassiana or bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis. The EIQ is presented in a way on the website and in the publication so that one can utilize the overall EIQ index or one can use the index resulting from an individual component. The individual component index for beneficial organisms will be useful to those who apply beneficial organisms and then need to use a pesticide in order to manage a different pest or to provide additional control of the original pest. The EIQ beneficial organism index could then be used to make a pesticide choice that would preserve the activity of the beneficial while still providing the needed pest control. Statements of priority from stakeholders: EIQ information has been included in the New York State Integrated Crop and Pest Management Guidelines for Commercial Vegetable Production for the past three years as a result of requests from growers to Cornell Cooperative Extension staff for information on which pesticides to apply that result in less environmental harm. In addition, Wegmans Supermarkets (a NE region supermarket chain in three states), Agrilink Foods (the largest frozen vegetable processor in the US) and about 100 vegetable farmers in the northeast make use of the EIQ annually as part of IPM labeling projects. It is important to these many stakeholders that the EIQ reflect accurate and up to date information in terms of impact on beneficial organisms and the effects of newly registered pesticides on these organisms. Additionally, the proposed work could impact all crops and pests on which pesticides are used by providing environmental impact information to help applicators choose among pesticides. Priorities for research and implementation of biological control and the use of beneficial organisms in agricultural crops developed by stakeholders include the following: Cabbage Research and Development Program 11/17/2000 - New York "High Priority - Biological Control of insects, diseases and/or weeds" New York State IPM Program 2001 Priorities Fruit - "Proposals will be funded that encourage the preservation of indigenous beneficial organisms that can regulate pest populations on the crop or in the soil and also the development or use of biological organisms that can be applied to cropping systems for pest control." Livestock/Field Crops - "High Priority - improve grower awareness and confidence in comprehensive IPM strategies (cultural, biological, least toxic, and reduced pesticide) that minimize impact of all major pests in production system while optimizing net profitability and environmental impact." Landscape and Nursery - "Biorational approaches to pest management." Vegetable - "High - Improve our understanding of which are the most important natural enemies and how insecticides may affect them. The objective is to devise strategies to conserve the most important natural enemies through careful selection of any needed pesticide applications." All of these stakeholder-developed priorities point to the need to improve our knowledge of the interaction of beneficial organisms and pesticides with the idea of protecting the effectiveness of the beneficial organisms. The proposed work will address these identified priorities by developing and refining a tool that can be used by growers to make decisions about which pesticides to choose to avoid damage to beneficial organisms. Objectives: 1) Conduct a laboratory evaluation of the effect of a broad range of pesticides on the survival of beneficial organisms. 2) Develop two indices comparing the relative harm to the beneficial organisms by different pesticides. 3) Incorporate the indices into the already existing Environmental Impact Quotient (EIQ) thus improving the reliability of the "beneficial" term in the EIQ equation. 4) Update EIQ information and add it to the existing EIQ website in order to allow for dissemination of the information resulting from the project. |
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