Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Summary of the Wide-Area Monitoring and Forecasting Meeting, March 1, 2011: A proposed product of the 2 Wide Area Monitoring Webinars was the submission of a NERA planning grant. The grant was submitted with the leadership of Carrie Koplinka  Loehr and input from a number of others involved in wide area monitoring in the NE. Although it was not funded through NERA, the NE IPM Center agreed to support a smaller meeting of interested individuals. The goals of the meeting were: a) briefly review regional and national monitoring/forecasting tools available) determine gaps that need to be filled to advance grower adoption of IPM; c) clarify the objectives to be met by a collaborative grant proposal; d) review and decide on appropriate funding sources; and e) create work teams and a timeline for the proposal. Although no proposal came forward from the meeting, there was great exchange and better understanding of what is occurring in the NE and other regions between individuals at the meeting as well as folks calling in by conference call. As a result of the meeting, it appears that small collaborations will develop between a number of groups including Maine and the Paul Jepsons group at Oregon State, NEWA and an Atkins Center grant in NY as well as Harvey Reisiggs SCRI planning grant. In 2013, E-IPM Proposals there may be another opportunity for multistate collaborations under the area of Wide Area Monitoring.

Coordination Activities: Currently there is an officially funded New England Coordination Working Group made up of members of NEERA1001 and other IPM professionals. This group meet with the entire NEERA 1001membership to discuss coordination of programs at the regional level. Topics of discussion included : (a) Developing an IPM Community of Practice in the NE Region for Home Owner/.Master Gardener IPM, (b) Development of a Template for Regional Fact Sheets  NE IPM Center will pursue, (c) Regional Publication Needs : The Management of Voles was identified as a possible topic. Alan Eaton (NH) and Joanne Whalen (DE) will work on coordination of a publication; Pest Management in High Tunnels; Pollinators and Weed Management; Aquatic Weed management; Invasive Weed Species; (b) Regional Hot Topics/ Potential New Pests: Expand the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Pest Alert to 2 levels of fact sheets: homeowners vs. agriculture , Weed Resistance Management, Vertebrate Pests and Spotted Winged Drosophila, and (c) Regional Grant Opportunities. Breakout sessions also occurred to focus on topics specific to the New England and Mid-Atlantic Groups. Major points that came out of the New England Groups breakout session included : 1) Prospects and advantages for a unified publication management system for all of the New England crop production guides, including a database of pesticide characteristics integrated into the different guides to greatly reduce the clerical work required to update the guides each year. 2) Need and opportunity for a regional school turf IPM management effort. 3) Need for updated baseline information on pesticide use patterns for tree fruit and possibly other crops in New England. The values used for comparative purposes in evaluation IPM program impacts are from the 1980s.4) Value in continuing regional crop oriented meetings that serve as the primary networking opportunity for IPM educators. 5) Advantages available from better coordination between the IPM and Pesticide Safety Education Programs in each state, including PESP participation in NEERA. 6) Interest in compiling plant disease and insect specimen diagnostic records from across New England into a single reference database. The Mid-Atlantic group focused on plans to develop a Field Crop Working Group . Keith Waldron from Cornell joined the group by conference call to provide background on a previous NE Field Crop Working Group. A survey is planned to get input into development of priorities

IPM 3 Presentation: Bob Nowierski, National Institute of Food and Agriculture: joined the group by conference call and provided an overview of IPM Cubed. He then lead a discussion on how the NEREAP  IPM group could be part of IPM cubed and identified possible NEREAP-IPM projects such as EQUIP training for specialty crops for TSPs, and providing assistance with the Bedbugs module which is under development.

IPM Center Reports

Carrie Koplinka-Loehr presented information about the centers involvement in the following: (a) Collaborations with HUD on IPM Programs including training sessions, kits and DVDs; (b) Participant in an SCRI grant on BMSB were the Center will providing decision support to the group if the grant is funded; (c) IPM Voice  a non- profit group being developed as an entity to advocate for IPM that is separate from Land Grants and Government entities. They are currently developing by-laws; (d) Collaboration with the National Clean Plant Network to target nurseries and extension educators. She also provided an update on staff replacement and website updates.

John Ayers  Provided the group with an update on the NE RIPM Grants Program and the Partnership Grants Program. There were 25 proposals submitted to the RIPM program and 5 were funded. There 22 proposals submitted to the Partnership Grants Program and 19 were funded.

March 3, 2011

Reports from National Institute of Food and Agriculture:

Marty Draper  A comprehensive overview was provided to the group and detailed discussion covered a number of topics including: the status of E-IPM (2011-13), funding carryover, the new RFA, President 2012 budget, AFRI Challenge area, FADI funding current status of the federal continuing resolutions as of March 3. The group was made of the aware of the fact that there is a requirement in the E-IPM grant that project directors report on grant activities and accomplishments at some type of PD workshop, i.e. all funded projects have a requirement to be part of NEERA 1001. Marty also indicated that one part of the 2012 National IPM Symposium in Memphis will be a PD workshop where all will be required to either present orally or as a poster. He provided all with a PDF of his presentation.

Elizabeth Ley  Liz covered a number of important topics related to the E-IPM Grants including CRIS reports including information on progress and final reports, details on how the continuation awards will be handled, statutory time limit of the grants ( RIPM is 3 years and E-IPM is 5 years), information on no-cost extensions, pre-awards and budget changes. She also provided the group with a PDF of her presentation.

EPA Reports

Audrey Moore  EPA Region 2  Audrey reported on 2 grant programs as well as provide an update on PESP projects and their IPM in Schools data base: (a) EPA Region 2 Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program (PESP): The following 2 year PESP grant was awarded in 2011 to Rutgers University for a project titled Implementing IPM-based Tools to Increase Adoption of New Reduced-Risk Insecticides in Cranberries for $53,000. This project will evaluate the efficacy of new reduced-risk (RR) insecticides as alternatives to currently used organophosphate insecticides in cranberries, develop and validate degree-day models to more precisely time insecticide sprays, measure biological and environmental benefits of RR pest management practices, educate cranberry growers about these practices, and measure growers adoption and attitude towards RR integrated pest management (IPM practices).(b) EPA Region 2 Strategic Agricultural Initiative (SAI): The following 2 year SAI grants were awarded in 2010 to Cornell University. The first project titled Partnering for Pesticide Reduction: Using grower partnerships to develop resources for increasing use of biocontrol in NYS greenhouses for $95,939 will focus on a partnership of Cornell with growers and the greenhouse industry group NYS Flower Industries (NYSFI) to create a workbook entitled Getting Started with Biocontrol for Greenhouse Insect Management. This workbook will promote the use of biological control of insect pests as an alternative to chemical insect management. New York State has approximately 23.8 million square feet of greenhouse space for the production of floricultural crops with over 800 producers. Increasing the use of biocontrol will impact environmental and human health through reductions in insecticide applications while still maintaining product quality. The second project titled Project DRIFT (Drift Reduction through Innovative Farming Technology for $99,941 has a primary goal to preserve water and air quality by minimizing volatile pesticide drift at lakeside and coastal vineyards and local vineyard urban/rural interfaces in New Yorks Lake Erie and Finger Lakes regions as well as in New Jerseys Coastal Plains region. As part of this project, the researchers will develop affordable, adjustable air flow retrofits for traditional air blast sprayers and install them on four cooperating growers machines (two in New York and two in New Jersey). Cornell University NYSAES will encourage partnerships and technology transfer between vineyard managers, scientists and local extension agencies during retrofit demonstrations at numerous growers meetings in the region. (c) PESP Project Updates : The Regional PESP grant to the University of Medicine and Dentistry of NJ for their project entitled: TickLES - Tick Learning and Education for Schools: An Interactive Multi-media Training Program for 4th to 8th Grade Students is nearing completion. The game and video should be available soon on the following web sites: www.LymeDiseaseAssociation.org, www.cdc.gov/ticks, www.epa.gov, and (d) IPM in Schools Database: Their office has developed a database with the emails of all public schools for grades K-12 in NY and NJ. We will use this database to conduct an electronic mass mailing of our publications. The database has gone through a beta-test.

Audrey also provide updates from John Butler ( who had another meeting commitment) from EPA Region 3 regarding 2 grants programs: (a) Strategic Agricultural Initiative Program  2 year projects  one to Penn State for a strawberry bio inoculation project and one to the PA Sustainable Ag group. (b) Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Program  awarded to the Maryland Department of Health and for a Bed Bug Project.

Andrea M. Szylvian  EPA Region 1- Andrea reported on 2 grant programs:

(a) STRATEGIC AGRICULTURAL INITIATIVE (SAI) PROGRAM - The following year 2 years SAI grant was awarded in 2010 to the University of Massachusetts for a project titled: "Promoting the Adoption of Reduced Risk Options for Weed Control in Commercial Cranberry Production" for $99,692. The project seeks to help cranberry growers understand what weed control options (beyond herbicides) are available to growers by evaluating several types of flame cultivation--the types are: open flame, infrared, and infrared spike as well as evaluating the use of plant growth regulators which can also be used for weed control. (b) PESTICIDE ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM (PESP): The Region 1 PESP grant has been selected, but not awarded. At this time, we are not able to announce the recipient.

Current Undergraduate IPM Classroom Activities  Anna Legrand  University of Connecticut and Ed Rajotte  Penn State University

At the NEREAP meeting in 2010, we discussed the need to better engage the academic community in NEREAP. Currently, we have at least two IPM coordinators in the region involved in delivery IPM classes to undergraduates at their Universities.

Ana Legrand, University of Connecticut  Current class room activities focus on two and four year students in a variety of majors including horticulture, natural resource management, landscape and turf. Use a mixture of lectures, guest speakers, tem papers and exams to teach IPM principles. Currently uses the textbook  Concepts in IPM by Robert Norris, et al as a basis for the course.

Ed Rajotte  Penn State University  The IPM class at Penn State is team taught and designed as an upper level Capstone Course. Includes field trips as well as work on a team project to work on a real world pest problem and are required to come up with feasible IPM solutions.

State Reports: Each State provided highlights of program activities since the last meeting The details of each state report are contained in individual state reports submitted to the chair (Joanne Whalen) and distributed to the membership. Dean Polk from Rutgers University provided the group with a presentation on documenting and reporting on program impacts

Chair starting April 2011  Rakesh Chandran, University of West VA Chair Elect : Ana Legrand , University of Connecticut

Wide Area Monitoring Webinars: At the April 2010 NEREAP meeting, the discussion of webinars for the next meeting evolved into a webinar working group consisting of members of NEREAP, NE IPM Center personnel, and others extension colleagues working in this area in the NE. The topic of Wide Area Monitoring was identified as an area where there is extensive expertise that could be used to expand regional collaborations. With limited state funding, current and future potential reductions in staff, and the existence of a diversity of state/multistate monitoring programs in the Northeast, it became apparent that this would be a great fit for a webinar.

Results:

The Northeast Research, Extension, and Academic Program Committee for IPM (NEREAP) collaborated with the NE-IPM center to offer two webinars on pest- and crop monitoring this fall. Carrie did a great job with the technology and it went off seamless. The firstWide-area Monitoring in the Northeast: What's Happening and How Can You Fit in?was held September 15 and drew 57 participants. Goals of this first webinar as highlighted by the moderator Curt Petzoldt included identification of individuals involved in networks as well as individuals interested in pursuing funding for a regional grant and/or program. It featured Ed Rajotte, Pennsylvania IPM Program (PA PIPE); Shelby Fleischer, The Pennsylvania State University (Pest Watch); and Julie Carroll, Cornell University (NEWA). Discussion focused on how to better use these monitoring capabilities by working together and whether we should consider a multistate project using new concepts and technologies. One of the participants suggested that we should investigate of establishing the group as an NGO to increase the level of collaboration across the region. The second webinar was held on October 19 and featured delivery methods for wide-area monitoring in the Northeast.

Whalen and Chandran (current chairperson and chairperson elect) attended the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy/Experiment Station Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP/ESCOP) National IPM Committee.