Grant Information
| Knowledge Area | Subject of Investigation | Field of Science | Percent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1510 - Corn (for sweetcorn use 1480) | 1120 - Nematology | 20% |
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1520 - Grain sorghum | 1120 - Nematology | 20% |
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1710 - Upland cotton | 1140 - Weed science | 20% |
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1540 - Hard red winter wheat | 1130 - Entomology and acarology | 10% |
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1542 - Soft red wheat | 1130 - Entomology and acarology | 10% |
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1820 - Soybean | 1160 - Pathology | 10% |
| 216 - Integrated Pest Management Systems | 1830 - Peanut | 1160 - Pathology | 10% |
Pests damage crops, transmit diseases, destroy structures and other property, are nuisances and bite and/or sting humans, pets and domestic animals. The Texas IPM Program addresses the management of pests across the state in rural/agricultural settings and in communities cities, towns, homes, businesses, schools and other venues. Pesticides can be harmful to human health and the environment and they are expensive. Best management practices involve excluding or avoiding pests, cultural/sanitation practices to reduce pest populations, use of varieties/hybrids/breeds that are more tolerant of pests, reliance on biological control, monitoring/scouting and use of least toxic pesticides as needed.
The Texas IPM program will rely on a variety of educational methods. These will include traditional meetings, field days, conferences and trainings (face-to-face educational methods), delivery of information to people one-on-one via telephone, e-mail, individual visits, etc., newsletters, newspapers, TV, radio, the electronic methods (websites, blogs, social media, cell phone apps, on-line trainings and video/web TV).
Target Audience
The Texas IPM Program has a number of target audiences. The crop production IPM component targets crop producers in ~3 county units (10 in 2014) in some of the most concentrated agricultural production areas in the state. Speciality crop programming addressed pecan growers and producers of nursery and greenhouse grown plants. The urban IPM component of the program targeted those living in and near larger Texas cities, but reached many people outside of those areas as well. Another target audience was school employees. Environmentalists and advocates for healthy communities were still another audience. Finally, we provided information that was used to educate local County Commissioners Courts, and state and federal legislators.
Changes / Problems
Our approach is sound. While there have been changes in the performance evaluation systems (increased emphasis on objective measures of program success), the strategy of strongly involving stakeholders in programming remains a central component of the program.
Training & Professional Development
The USDA NIFA program provided resources which allowed Agents and Program Specialists to attend society, commodity and pest specific professional meetings along with Agency and Departmental training meetings. These meetings improve professional competence and the educational effectiveness or employees.
Dissemination Streams
Frequent newsletters, radio programs, TV programs, popular press and newspaper articles, educational meetings, websites, blogs, social media, text messaging, and other methods are encouraged (by the performance appraisal system) to get information quickly and effectively to stakeholders. Annual reports summarized important program accomplishments and demonstration and applied research results which empowered stakeholders to adopt IPM and agricultural improvements. .
Next Reporting Steps
Nothing Reported
Target Audience
Texas IPM Program target audiences for the USDA NIFA 2013 EIPM - CS grant included farmers, agricultural consultants, commodity groups, citizens with pest management concerns, elementary through college students, pest management professionals, School IPM Coordinators, nursery & greenhouse growers, pecan growers, lawn & landscape care professionals, people managing athletic fields and golf courses, and employees of municipalities with mosquito control responsibilities.
Changes / Problems
There were no significant changes in the approach. The Texas IPM Program is organized in local IPM Units each of which meets with its IPM Steering Committee to prioritize program objectives. This provides the programatic direction for the each unit. IPM Agents and Program Specialists work with Extension Specialists, other experts and stakeholders to conduct applied research and educational programming to address high priority objectives identified by the Steering Committees. As pests and stakeholder needs change, program priorities are adjusted by the Steering Committees. The model for the program is very sound. It works effectively in an era of rapidly changing technology and emerging pest problems.
Training & Professional Development
EIPM-CS funding partially funds travel to society and national commodity/interest group meetings for professional development training. It also partially funds travel to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension IPM and Entomology training at an annual professional retreat.
Dissemination Streams
As detailed in the Other Products section of this report, many delivery methods were used to disseminate information to stakeholders. We used conferences, meetings, one-on-one, telephone, e-mail, newsletters, newspaper articles, web pages, blogs, twitter, facebook, videos, on-line courses, college courses, etc. to reach communities of interest. A cell phone app was developed for use by cotton farmers to help them identify pests and access management information. Other cell phone apps for head worms, sorghum midge and stink bugs in grain sorghum aided producers in decision making.
Next Reporting Steps
An on-line course will be developed to help train more mosquito management personnel working for municipalities. Cell phone app development is planned for field crop IPM and specialty crop IPM. Increased use of websites, blogs and electronically delivered newsletters is planned. We plan to develop programming in management of invasive pests, including increasing our efforts to manage HLB in citrus (web page and cell phone app development), and further efforts to manage sugarcane aphid on grain sorghum. More educational work on crop diseases and nematode management is expected as new technologies and practices are developed. Development of teaching aids for educational gardens is planned. The aids will provide information on plants and plant pests to students' tablets via scanable QR codes. <br><br>
<br>What was accomplished under these goals? Selected Program Highlights Bed Bug Efforts – Efforts to improve bed bug detection and management in Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Antonio homeless shelters are being used to develop teaching resources to educate pest management professionals and managers of homeless shelters, motels, nursing homes and other facilities to better manage bed bugs. Aflatoxin Management Education - Dryland corn producers in Central and South Texas have experienced significant losses from aflatoxin contaminated grain for more than 100 years. When toxin levels are very high, the corn is toxic and cannot be sold or used for any purpose. Losses in the United States were estimated in a recent publication at $200 million per year. Recently, USDA-ARS found that some strains of A. flavus do not produce the toxin. Fields can be treated with atoxigenic strains which competitively displace toxic strains. The IPM group has worked to educate producers. The result has been a reduction in aflatoxin tained corn throughout the affected corn growing areas of Texas, saving millions of dollars in dry years. Saltcedar Beetle - Saltcedar is an invasive plant of Mediterranean and central Asian origins which is believed to have been introduced to North America as an ornamental plant in the 1820s. It utilizes large amounts of water, degrades soil quality by concentrating salt at the soil surface, crowds out native plants and grows so prolifically that it impedes stream flow. The introduction of several species of saltcedar beetles by teams of scientists led by Extension has led to their establishment the Rio Grande and Pecos river drainage, the western Colorado and Brazos rivers and the upper drainages of the Red and Canadian rivers. The result will be a riparian habitat opened up to native plant species once again, slow improvement of soil quality (salinity), increased water availability and improved stream flow. Long-term suppression of saltcedar is expected. to be maintained. Learning to Manage Invasive Insect Pests - Invasive insect pests have been on the increase in recent years. In 2013 Texans have experienced problems with the sugarcane aphid on grain sorghum, and the Bermudagrass stem maggot a pest of bermudagrass grown for hay. Recent invasions from: tawny crazy ant, Kurtomathrips – a pest of cotton, brown marmorated stink bug – a pest of both agriculture and homes, bagrada bug – a pest of vegetables, and chilli thrips – a pest of roses and other ornamental plants have caused economic losses and degraded human quality of life. Asian citrus psyllid – the vector of citrus killing Huanglongbing disease, the Turkestan cockroach – a household pest of warm regions, and others have made their way to Texas. The Texas IPM Program is working to provide Texans with solutions to problems caused by invasive pests. Melanaphis Task Force - In the fall of 2013 Research and Extension Entomologists began to encounter an aphid on grain sorghum that had not been seen before. The Extension Entomology Project Group named a task force to get information to growers about this pest. The task force tested control tactics, prepared educational materials for meetings, fact sheet(s), and web sites, held multi-county meetings, wrote educational articles (ag press, newsletters and newspapers), and produced radio programs on the aphid. By June 2014, two consultants in the Lower Rio Grande Valley reported that the sugarcane aphid educational effort in the valley had saved growers losses of $64-65 million on the 400,000 acres of grain sorghum grown there. In the area of Texas infested in 2013, another, 730,000 acres of Texas grain sorghum is grown. The total economic impact may reach $120 million - just for the 2014 season. West Nile Virus Task Force - Texas had 1,900 cases of West Nile Virus in 2012. Eighty-nine people died and the cost of mosquito control was about $47.6 million. The West Nile Virus Task Force, created just over one year ago, is completed a handbook which was be used to educate personnel across Texas who are involved in mosquito and mosquito-borne disease management. The handbook will be used to deliver trainings to providers of mosquito/disease control, both in face-to-face and online workshops. Thresholds have been developed, based on trapping and mosquito testing data, to help communities know when treatments for mosquito larvae and adults are needed to prevent spikes in West Nile Virus infection of human populations. We expect this effort to play a significant role in keeping Texans and citizens in other states safer from West Nile Virus, preventing illness and death. We also expect that the information in the manual will have application for other mosquito borne diseases. Cotton Root Rot Control Education - A team including Extension Economist Bill Thompson, Agronomist David Drake and IPM Agent Rick Minzenmayer have developed a management tool to help growers decide on whether or not to invest money in Top Guard®, flutriafol, for cotton root rot control in their fields. The decision aid has been created and will soon be available on paper and via a cell phone app. The value of the cotton root rot control program was estimated to be $5 million in 2013. Texas Cotton IPM Program – In 2012, IPM Agents worked with cotton farmers in 41 Texas counties to improve pest management and farm profits. They participated in over 713 educational programs reaching over 18,000 people, wrote 458 newsletter issues which reached a cumulative total of 156,803 people, provided information in 733 TV and radio programs and produced 153 newspaper articles. A 2012 survey of 136 cotton producers managing 272,00 acres indicated the average net returns attributable to the IPM program were $40.19 per acre - a total increase in net returns from responding producers of $10.9 million. Reduced pesticide use provided environmental benefits to both farmers and society. School IPM Program – In January 2013, Janet Hurley, Mike Merchant, Charles Allen, Dean McCorkle, and Dan Hanselka wrote a white paper describing the Texas School IPM Program and its benefits. The paper reported results from a 2006 survey of School IPM Coordinators. Seventy-five percent of respondents believed the school IPM program had resulted in more effective pest control. This result is consistent with studies done in other states where researchers have shown that School IPM has significantly improved children’s health and reduced pesticide use. A case study of Spring ISD near Houston has shown a 45% reduction in pest related work orders, 70% reduction in pesticide applications. Only environmentally friendly products are used and no pesticides are used indoors. IPM Internship Program – Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service sponsored 9 IPM Interns in 2013. Five female and four male students were selected for Internship positions. The students were paired with an IPM Agent, IPM Program Specialist, AgriLife Extension or AgriLife Research professional and spent the summer working on research and extension projects. They were unanimously enthusiastic about the program and 100% stated in their final report that they would like to spend their careers working in IPM. <br><br><b>Publications</b><br>