College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
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Microbiologist Works to Better China's Water Quality
Students Adopt Strawberry Mutants
Teaching Character and Learning from It, Too
Building Partnerships with Urban Boarding Schools
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EQIPping Growers to Protect the Environment
Timely Notifications Ward Off Vegetable Foes
How Important Are Locally Grown Foods?
EQIPping Growers to Protect the Environment
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| Tim Mize, agriculture and natural resources Extension agent in Fauquier County, examines a moth trap baited with pheromones in an apple orchard. Traps such as these help growers monitor insect populations and determine when they need to manage a particular pest. |
Apple and peach growers in Virginia are learning ways to decrease the environmental impact of their insect pest management practices, and they are getting financial help to do it.
The producers are enrolled in the national Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), funded through the Farm Bill and administered through the National Resources Conservation Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program aims to demonstrate to farmers that profitable agricultural production and improved environmental quality are compatible goals.
Participating growers agree to implement environmentally friendly practices in their orchards, in exchange for incentive payments that can help offset the costs of those practices. Virginia Cooperative Extension’s role in the program is to provide technical expertise and educational programs for the growers enrolled.
| "We work with growers to teach them IPM practices, accurately assess which pests they have, and then help them make informed decisions on how to deal with those pests," says Chris Bergh. |
Virginia growers from Carroll County to Frederick County are enrolled in the program, which distributed more than $150,000 in its first year of operation. The program is expected to expand in coming seasons.
The Virginia EQIP effort is focused on promoting the adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) practices in the orchards of the participating growers. Chris Bergh, associate professor of entomology at the Alson H. Smith Jr. Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Winchester, leads the effort. “We work with growers to teach them IPM practices,” Bergh says. “We help them accurately assess which pests they have, and then help them make informed decisions on how to deal with those pests.”
One technique being used is helping growers choose pesticides that are documented as having “reduced risk” for the environment.
Another tactic growers can use to manage the major moth pests of tree fruit is pheromone-based mating disruption. In this method, synthetic pheromones that mimic the natural sex pheromone used by female moths to attract mates are released into the orchard. They disrupt the ability of male moths to find and mate with the females, ultimately reducing the population of insects.
Yet another IPM method that relies on pheromones is the practice of monitoring pest populations by catching moths in traps baited with pheromones. These traps can tell growers when moth emergence begins and provide information on the size of pest populations. Since insects require a certain amount of accumulated heat, or “degree-days” to hatch, combining the information from pheromone traps with the accumulation of heat units over time will help growers determine whether and when they need to manage a particular pest.
“Many of these growers have traditionally followed a set schedule of spraying every two weeks for insect pests,” says Kenner Love, Extension agent in Rappahannock County, one of the areas where orchardists are enrolled in the program. “The EQIP program has taught them to better understand pest biology and to spray when the reduced-risk insecticides will be the most effective.”
Love goes on to say that Extension has had good success working with growers to educate them on the techniques needed for placing traps, recording moth captures, and comparing captures to degree-day data. “Weekly monitoring provides the growers with the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions that ultimately protect their crops while minimizing environmental damage,” he concludes.