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Funded Project |
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Funding Program:
Regional IPM Competitive Grants - Northeastern |
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Project Title:
Promoting Apple IPM Implementation in Eastern New York Orchards by Expansion of the Northeast Weather Association System |
Project Director (PD):
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Lead State: NY Lead Organization: Cornell University |
| Extension Funding: $15,000 |
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Start Date: May-01-2004 End Date: Apr-30-2006 |
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No-Cost Extension Date: Apr-30-2007 |
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Pests Involved: Oriental fruit moths, fire blight, apple scab |
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Site/Commodity: apples |
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Area of Emphasis: weather, monitoring, forecasting |
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Summary:
To conduct integrated pest management (IPM) for eight major pests, apple growers must use weather information and pest forecast models. The Northeast Weather Association (NEWA) can provide both for free, fostering IPM implementation, environmental conservation, and land stewardship. To expand NEWA into Eastern NY, four growers are committed to purchasing weather stations, connecting to NEWA, and serving as grower educators to promote IPM implementation and the sustainability of apple production in their region. In this critical steps project cooperating growers will learn how to use NEWA, source weather data, interpret weather data and pest forecast models, and integrate weather data with scouting and monitoring to improve IPM practices. The outreach plan will target all other apple growers in Eastern NY who will benefit from the expansion of NEWA into their region. The NEWA system will be upgraded to deploy the Oriental fruit moth model and to a database format to improve data collection and web delivery. The project will be evaluated through feedback during the growing season, grower satisfaction with the NEWA system, and analysis of IPM practice implementation, spray data and yield evaluations. Because current apple IPM practices require the use of pest forecast models and not every grower has a weather station, the advantages of the NEWA system's instantaneous outreach potential to all growers in Eastern NY are considerable.
Problem, Justification, and Background The problem is the unavailability of the Northeast Weather Association (NEWA) in the apple-growing regions in Eastern New York. This is critical because, to conduct integrated pest management (IPM), growers must use weather information and pest forecast models. NEWA can provide both for free, fostering IPM implementation, environmental conservation, and land stewardship. Furthermore, we cannot underestimate the increasing demand of buyers, both internationally and domestically, for crop audit certification schemes that will, by definition of IPM, require growers to use weather information in pest management decisions. IPM for the major pests of apple requires pest forecast models that use weather data (temperature, relative humidity, leaf wetness, and rain). NEWA is a network of grower-owned weather stations from which data is automatically collected and IPM pest forecast models uploaded to a website, http://newa.nysaes.cornell.edu/. The NEWA Apple Home Page, http://newa.nysaes.cornell.edu/apple_home.htm, has pest forecast models for the major pests of apple, including apple scab, fire blight, plum curculio, obliquebanded leafroller, codling moth, San Jose Scale, and spotted tentiform leafminer. However, NEWA weather stations are located only in the Lake Ontario apple-growing region of Western NY, making the NEWA network unavailable for critical IPM decision-support in the Eastern NY apple growing regions. By expanding NEWA into Eastern NY, this project will promote the implementation of pest forecast models, non-pesticidal tactics, to measure pest risk. In addition, while it does not address the Phase I project report priorities on apple IPM in NY (Kovach et al 1995), it does address several fruit and apple stakeholder-identified IPM priorities for the Northeast (Anonymous 2003) and for NY (Carroll and English-Loeb 2003). These include the following: education regarding implementation of IPM programs, and monitoring techniques; Extension outreach programs; transition to web-based information delivery; IPM cost reduction; develop IFP; obliquebanded leafroller management, materials timing, and risk to "Honeycrisp" apples; internal lepidopteran management; fire blight management, and using models; apple scab management, management in wet years, and ascospore maturity. This project supports a critical step in the implementation of apple IPM for the major pests of apple. Expansion of the NEWA system will increase the supply and dissemination of pest forecast model information and knowledge. By virtue of being a web-based network with free access, NEWA will enhance the seamless collaboration among apple growers, extension and research personnel, and consultants. The NYS Apple IPM Elements draft, recently sent for review to apple industry stakeholders, has already received commentary from one consultant that few growers have weather stations to implement the pest models. This proposal addresses this critical void in pest forecasting on the farm through expansion of NEWA and education of growers on sourcing and using weather data and pest forecast model information. While weather monitoring and pest forecasts are only part of a sustainable apple production system, they require the use of rapidly evolving digital and web-based technology. It is crucial that we keep growers up-to-date in this advancing technological area. Growers must be able to make informed choices about weather information technology that fits their IPM needs and their bottom line. There are many sources of weather data: stand alone units or weather stations accessed directly in the field, weather stations accessed via radio waves or phone lines, and web-based weather information systems based on airport data and satellite imagery. NEWA offers the grower the ability to use a weather station on-the-ground without the need to travel out to the weather station, without the hassle of data collection and modeling, and without the added expense of software. Growers using NEWA weather data will learn to select the weather information that is most useful to their production practices and will gain the ability to assess the rapidly advancing weather data collection technology, what it can offer and what sources of weather will suit them best. Beyond benefiting the grower who owns the weather station, NEWA provides free access to that data to any other grower, researcher or Extension office. This altruistic feature of NEWA and the NEWA-connected grower is extremely valuable in promoting IPM practices across a regional area. In this way, NEWA makes it possible for growers to share resources for weather data collection, analysis, distribution, archiving, and pest forecasts. NEWA also has potential multi-state and multinational impacts since growers in adjacent regions of VT, MA, CT, and Quebec will be able to access and benefit from the Eastern NY NEWA network. This project does not address the NE-IPM annual emphases of weed and vertebrate management because weather data is not currently used to model and forecast weed and/or vertebrate development and associated management practices. However, NEWA does calculate and display a page with growing degree-days for each weather station. Thus NEWA is designed to provide information on weed management practices, should they be based on growing degree-days, a commonly used measure of plant development. All NE-IPM base priorities are addressed through the expansion of NEWA and dissemination of pest forecast models, as follows: * Apple IPM practices require the use of pest forecast models for codling moth, obliquebanded leafroller, Oriental fruit moth, plum curculio, San Jose scale, spotted tentiform leafminer, fire blight, and apple scab, all of which can be delivered via NEWA to enhance environmental stewardship and risk management by growers and their advisors. * The importance of the apple crop in NY is significant, being the second largest producer of apples in the USA, having a market value of $102 million in 2002. In Eastern NY 13,000 acres of apples are grown on 175 farms (Anonymous 2002). This project collaborates directly with four growers of 1216 acres of apples in Eastern NY. In addition, Eastern NY NEWA weather data and pest forecast models will be available to all growers throughout Eastern NY and the adjacent areas of VT, MA, CT and Quebec. * The insects and diseases of apples for which forecast models are delivered via NEWA include eight major direct and indirect pests. Apple pesticide programs are targeted specifically to manage these pests and implementing NEWA pest forecast models will improve risk management and minimize pesticide inputs. * Because the expansion of NEWA and implementation of pest forecast models is built on the commitment of the Commercial Tree Fruit Extension Specialists and four apple growers in Eastern NY it has a high probability of success in being widely implemented. Four growers in Eastern NY are committed to purchasing weather stations, connecting to NEWA, and serving as grower educators to promote IPM implementation and the sustainability of apple production in their region and they deserve the support sought in this proposal. Their commitment will allow NEWA to collect temperature, relative humidity, leaf wetness and rain data from their orchards, run the data through the apple pest and disease models and make this information available on the web site to all other apple growers in the region. The growers' commitment will foster IPM and IFP observance so key to environmental protection and market preservation. In order to expand NEWA most effectively, growers connecting to NEWA will have the support of the NYS Fruit IPM Coordinator and the Eastern NY Commercial Fruit Extension Specialists. They will assist growers in the placement of the weather stations on their farms, provide hands-on training in the use of NEWA's web-based information, and demonstrate how to access the weather station to obtain real-time weather data. Growers will learn to use weather forecasts to enhance IPM practices, to calculate and apply degree-day models for insect pests, and to access fire blight and apple scab forecast predictions. The integration of weather data with scouting and monitoring to improve IPM practices will be demonstrated and will become a key component of the pest management strategies in their orchards. Cornell Cooperative Extension Specialists will utilize NEWA weather data from these four growers to inform other apple growers in the region about pest risk through their extension newsletters, improving IPM implementation across the region. These newsletters will also be posted on the NEWA Apple Home Page to inform other growers in the region about local interpretation of weather data and pest forecast models. Because growers will be an integral part of the expansion of NEWA into Eastern NY, it will be possible to receive direct feedback from them to improve NEWA's web-delivery. These improvements will benefit Western NY, as will deploying the Oriental fruit moth degree-day model (Hull et al 2002), since this pest is causing severe damage to apples and stone fruit in this region. Direct involvement with the NEWA system will engage growers in exploring various sources of weather information and instrumentation. This will improve their inherent ability to assess the pros and cons of weather instrumentation and sources of weather data, making them more informed consumers of weather information. The growers involved in this project will serve as educators for other growers, informing them about NEWA, pest forecast models, and improved IPM implementation both informally and formally at extension-sponsored grower meetings. They will also inform the IPM decisions of other local growers because their weather data is available free via NEWA. Improved IPM implementation will benefit a grower's need to certify their crop for market access. This has become a stark reality for many wholesale apple growers in NY racing to meet EUREPGAP? certification by January 2004 to qualify for export to the UK. IPM and integrated fruit production (IFP) standards have long been held as the foundation of market certification schemes to promote sustainable practices on the farm and in the marketplace. In the last year, Cornell University extension personnel have developed a set of Apple IPM Elements and an Apple IFP Protocol at the request of the NYS apple industry to meet the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) programs for conservation through IPM practices and the increasing demand for certified produce in a "buyer-driven" market. In apple IPM and IFP, weather data monitoring and pest forecast models feature prominently. As with all IPM practices, such pest forecasting models translate into improved environmental protection and stewardship by the grower, enhanced crop protection and yield, and the preservation and expansion of their markets through value-added market certification schemes. Objectives: This project aims to promote IPM implementation in apple production through improved and expanded delivery of pest forecast models via the Northeast Weather Association (NEWA) and associated grower education on the application of weather data to risk management and environmental stewardship. Specific objectives are as follows: 1. Expand NEWA with at least four, grower-owned, weather stations located in Eastern NY apple orchards to collect weather data and disseminate IPM pest forecast model information via NEWA to the apple industry in Eastern NY. 2. Educate apple growers on using NEWA, weather stations, sourcing weather data, and integrating weather data with scouting and monitoring to improve IPM practices. 3. Upgrade NEWA to a database system to enhance web output and flexibility in deploying pest models and deploy the Oriental fruit moth degree-day model developed by Dr. Larry Hull, Department of Entomology, Pennsylvania State University. Progress Report 2005 Progress Report 2005 - Diagram Progress Report 2006 Final Report |
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