Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Motions/Consensus Items:

1. A motion to approve the PMC minutes for the Fall 2023, Special Meeting of January 9, 2024, and Special Meeting of January 24, 2024  meetings was made by Liewi Gu, seconded by Todd Scholz;  unanimously approved. 

2. CLC VOTE: A motion was made to approve the “Track A” Commodity Liaison Committee membership list by Amy Upton; seconded by Zach Bagley; unanimously approved. 

3. CLC VOTE: A motion was made to approve Todd Scholz as the Chair and Keith Pitts as the Vice Chair by Mike Bledsoe, seconded by Amy Upton; unanimously approved. 

4. A motion to adjourn the regular session at 4:44 pm and to move to Executive Session was made by Alvin Simmons; seconded by Todd Scholz; unanimously approved. 

5. A motion was made to adjourn the meeting at 11:22 am by Alvin Simons seconded by Jerry Baron; unanimously approved. Motions/Consensus Votes Made Via Email In-Between Regular Meetings: None.

Action Items:  • Action Item (Baron/Braverman): The Biopesticide Regulatory Support Program will establish an enhanced vetting process for projects and an enhanced database tracking system to present and demonstrate both to the PMC at the Summer Meeting.  

FOOD USE PROGRAM

Successes - 211 new tolerances for 18 active ingredients were established by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) resulting in 1613 potential new product uses on food crops.

Regulatory Actions - 12 tolerance petitions were submitted to EPA and 2 Final Reports to the registrant for Label Expansion or Conditional Registration. These covered 92 unique requests for assistance and crop group tolerance updates.

Research

• 384 residue trials contributing to 52 Magnitude of the Residue studies
• 143 efficacy/crop safety trials contributing to 65 Product Performance projects
• 72 field trials contributing to 35 Integrated Solutions projects

ENVIRONMENTAL HORTICULTURE PROGRAM

Successes - BotryStop was registered in California, contributing to 500 new crop uses.

Regulatory Actions • 22 research summaries were written to support new or update existing registrations.

Research - 657 field and greenhouse trials (275 efficacy, 379 crop safety) that contributed to 57 project

INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES

• Technical leadership and project collaboration with the Minor Use Foundation
• Capacity building on biopesticide regulations and Good Laboratory Practices
• Assisted with a new international database
• Advised development of an import MRL program promoting export of U.S. commodities to Southeast Asia • Hosted four USDA FAS Borlaug Fellows for training 

Axtell, A, J. Patel, R. Batts, H. Ross, and J. Baron. 2023. The IR-4 Project: Success and benefits to specialty crop growers. National Alliance of Crop Consultant Conference, TX (poster)

Axtell, A. 2023. IR-4’s Accomplishments for Crop Group 6-22. 2023 California Dry bean Board Meeting (virtual presentation).

Batts, R.B., J. J. Baron, and V. K. Pedibhotla. 2023. IR-4: Weed Science Update - Food Crops. 2023 Southeast Regional Fruit & Vegetable Conference, Savannah, GA.  Abstract #24 (poster)

Batts, R.B., J. J. Baron, and V. K. Pedibhotla. 2023. IR-4: Weed Science Update - Food Crops. Proceedings of the 76th annual meeting of the Southern Weed Science Society, Baton Rouge, LA. Abstract #203 (presentation)

Batts, R.B., J. J. Baron, and V. K. Pedibhotla. 2023. IR-4: Weed Science Update - Food Crops. Proceedings of the Weed Science Society of America and Northeastern Weed Science Society joint meeting, Arlington, VA. Abstract #365 (presentation)

Batts, R.B. 2023. Registration Support for Pest Management Tools in Specialty Crops, The IR-4 Project: Purpose, Process, and Productivity. Center of Excellence for Regulatory Science in Agriculture, Raleigh, NC (Lecture - virtual)

Batts, R.B. 2023. Registration Support for Pest Management Tools in Specialty Crops, The IR-4 Project: Purpose, Process, and Productivity. Southeast Vegetable Extension Workers annual meeting, Mills River, NC (Presentation)

Batts, R., J. Spies, A. Axtell and J. Patel. 2023. IR-4 Project 2023 sweet potato update. NCSU sweet potato field day, Clinton, NC (handout) Beckerman, J. C. Palmer, E. Tedford, and H. Ypema. 2023. Fifty Years of Fungicide Development, Deployment, and Future Use. Phytopathology 113:694-706.

Patel, J., J. Baron and V. Pedibhotla. 2023. The IR-4 Project: Success and benefits to specialty crop growers. Annual Phytopathological Society meeting, Denver, CO (poster)

Ross, H. and P. Moore. July 2023. Behind the Scenes for the Bees: How IR-4 Supports Beekeepers and Honey Bees through Research and Regulation. Bee Culture, pages 66-67 Szczepaniec,

A., A. Lathrop-Melting, T. Janecek, P. Nachappa, W. Cranshaw, G.Alnajjar, and A. Axtell. Suppression of hemp russet mite, Aculops cannabicola (Acari: Eriophyidae), in industrial hemp in greenhouse and field, Environmental Entomology, 2023; nvad052, https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvad052

Uebbing, M.R., and Hausbeck, M.K. 2023. Efficacy of organic products for control of powdery mildew on moderately resistant acorn squash, 2022. Plant Disease Management Reports 17:V159, Link:  V158.pdf (plantmanagementnetwork.org, using data generated from IR-4 project No. IS00344 from 2022

Uebbing, M.R., Hayden, Z.D., and Hausbeck, M.K. 2023. Conventional and Biopesticide Fungicides for Cucurbit Downy Mildew Control on Cucumber in Michigan. Plant Health Progress, (ja).DOI: :https://doi.org/10.1094/PHP-03-23-0024-RS, using data generated from IR-4 project N0. IS00344 from 2021 and 2022