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Funded Project

Funding Program: Enhancement Grants - State Contacts/IPM Documents

Project Title: Virginia Pest Management Information Network - State Contact Project (SCP) and IPM Documents

Project Director (PD): Michael J. Weaver [1]

Lead State: VA Lead Organization: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Undesignated Funding: $50,000

Start Date: Mar-01-2009 End Date: Feb-28-2010

Pests Involved: all

Site/Commodity: specialty and agricultural crops

Summary: Since the inception of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) there has been an increased national emphasis to maintain viable pest management strategies for economically important crops. FQPA has affected the availability of many existing pest management tools, especially pesticides. This has potentially disrupted the ability of growers to implement effective integrated pest management (IPM) strategies, to manage pest resistance, and to compete in the world market. USDA has funded four regional integrated pest management centers to work with the States to focus on enhancing economic benefits, protecting human health, and preserving natural resources. This includes the preservation of viable IPM strategies. Virginia Tech is working with the Southern Region IPM Center, North Carolina State University (NCSU), and important agricultural stakeholders to create a series of crop pest management profiles, IPM Elements, and pest management strategic plans (PMSP) for important crops grown in Virginia, North Carolina and cooperating states in the Northeast and Southern regions. These documents communicate crop/pest/pest management concerns that may occur as a result of the potential impact of FQPA and the associated needs of stakeholders. Virginia Tech will support the Center through its IPM programs and as a resource center to stakeholders. Virginia Tech Pesticide Programs will serve as the state contact project for Virginia. This will involve serving as the primary contact for regulatory questions related to pest management and pesticides, establishing and maintaining a stakeholder network to develop state IPM priorities, providing oversight of Virginia crop profiles and PMSPs, providing personnel to attend an annual state contact meeting, and maintain a project web site to share pertinent IPM and regulatory information and resources with stakeholders. Virginia Tech will also develop (two) IPM Elements (wine grapes and turfgrass), refine its databases of IPM priorities, and stakeholders, develop a wine grape PMSP, update its current grape crop profile, and continue the revision of its existing crop profile database. Objectives: STATE CONTACT PROJECT OBJECTIVES: Objective 1: Serve as the primary contact for regulatory questions related to pest management and pesticides for Virginia. Document activities related to pesticide and pest management inquires from entities other than the Center, USDA and EPA. Objective 2: Establish and maintain a stakeholder network to consult, advise and otherwise participate in the activities of the SCP. As part of this activity we will maintain a list of stakeholders and IPM-related experts for important commodities and settings pertinent to the SCP. Objective 3: Oversee the maintenance and development of Virginia crop profiles, pest management strategic plans (PMSP), state priorities, and IPM Elements. This activity will include an annual assessment prioritizing crop profiles and PMSPs covered by the SCP. Objective 4: Participate in an annual state contact meeting sponsored by the IPM Center. Objective 5: Maintain a project website based on standards set by the Southern Region IPM Center. Objective 6: Maintain a communications system to keep the stakeholder network in close contact with the SCP, pest management and pesticide regulatory issues, and to share input into crop profiles, IPM Elements and PMSPs. IPM DOCUMENTS OBJECTIVES - Objective 1: Develop crop profiles according to Center standards for Virginia crops that are either listed on the EPA BEAD priorities list, cross-listed on the EPA (FQPA) kids crops list, listed as important crops based on percent of national crop yield data, are major state crops that will be drastically affected by FQPA, or are listed on the Virginia IPM Priorities list. Objective 2: Continue to complete outstanding PMSPs and crop profiles and evaluate existing profiles for major revision to meet the current guidelines, which did not exist when the profiles were written. Continue a process of major revision (not routine maintenance as stated in SCP Objective 3, above), which will entail extensive and detailed work to complete. Objective 3: Develop PMSPs with stakeholders in Virginia and cooperating states. Virginia Tech will work with NCSU to complete PMSPs for pepper, potato in Virginia and North Carolina. Virginia will work with the Mid-Atlantic States to complete a PMSP for wine grapes. Objective 4: Continue to refine an alternative protocol for PMSP development (which will meet Center standards) that in 2006-08 was shown to be more efficient and less costly than the previous method and will help resolve problems with PMSP development in this and other states. Objective 5: Maintain and refine the IPM priority list for Virginia to supplement the out-of-date EPA/BEAD priorities list that was the primary tool used to direct crop profile and PMSP development. We built an IPM Priorities website from stakeholder surveys over the past three years and will continue to refine and expand the priorities database to include other stakeholder input on which to establish future crop profile, Element, and PMSP development and to enhance IPM programs in Virginia. Objective 6: Develop IPM Elements with stakeholders in Virginia and cooperating states. Virginia Tech will work with NCSU and other cooperators in the Mid-Atlantic States to complete IPM Elements for turfgrass and wine grapes.

Final Report:

Impacts We assessed our priorities to determine whether the EPA standards fit Virginia and determined that they do not. So we supplemented our needs based on regional issues/needs and added crops to the list that we felt were priority crops for local agriculture. We continued to work on outstanding IPM documents with progress on several. We held PMSPs for pepper and potato in eastern Virginia. We could not get cooperation from North Carolina stakeholders. We had great success working with North Carolina on a PMSP for wine grapes. The work was published and produced additional grower requests for similar activities in the future. One group of organic growers met with us by conference call later in the year. We continued to work on refining our PMSP methods and were able to develop PMSPs without using the demanding and costly protocols originally set by USDA. We updated our IPM priority list with stakeholder input and published this on our IPM State Contact project website. We developed and published IPM Elements for turfgrass and wine grapes.

Outputs PMSP for Pepper and Potato for VA and MD- Pocomoke City, MD - workshop and publication (under development) PMSP for Potato - supplement from VA producers - Lancaster County, VA - workshop and publication (under development) PMSP for wine grapes in VA and NC, Afton, VA - workshop and publication (published) PMSP for Turfgrass in VA, NC, SC, Blacksburg, VA - workshop and publication (published) IPM Elements for wine grapes in Virginia and North Carolina - publication (published) IPM Elements for turfgrass in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina - publication (published) Virginia Vineyards Association annual technical meeting, Charlottesville, VA (2010) as follow-up Virginia Turfgrass Association annual field days, Blacksburg, VA (2007 to 2011) reporting results

Outcomes Project outcomes included establishing stakeholder needs for potato, pepper, wine grapes, and turfgrass for the region. Much of this was published and shared with stakeholders. Stakeholders were able to take this information to enhance their industries. IPM Elements were released at annual stakeholder meetings to incorporate this information into the organizations. We know that the wine grape growers and turfgrass industry in Virginia used the IPM documents as part of their educational efforts with their industry. Much of information we produced was used by Extension specialists to enhance their educational programs.

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