Leaders Ruth Hazzard and Curt Petzoldt facilitated the 2002 Vegetable CWG meeting.

IPM Commodity Working Groups (CWGs)

NE PMC has created a forum for pest management experts and other stakeholders to develop integrated pest management (IPM) priorities in agricultural commodities and non-ag pest management settings such as parks and schools. These CWGs are working to promote environmentally and economically sound pest management decisions by evaluating the status of current pest management practices, identifying critical information needs, compiling IPM definitions, and determining priorities for future projects.

Fruit: The Fruit CWG is documenting available IPM resources on a state-by-state basis. It works with state IPM coordinators and others to collect and organize this information, and then make it available to stakeholders via the NE PMC web site. In addition, this group is developing a survey to determine stakeholder research, education, and regulatory priorities.

Vegetables: The Vegetable CWG intends to serve coordination and communication functions as well as setting research and extension priorities in regional IPM programming. Members are documenting and delineating IPM resources (e.g., protocols, scouting guides) in the region, and the group anticipates sponsoring a regional pest management strategic plan (PMSP).

Greenhouse/Ornamentals: This CWG has adopted the name "GO-IPM" and has received funding from the NE PMC Steering Committee to conduct a survey of key pest management stakeholders in each state to provide a broad perspective on the IPM priorities for the region. The group is also compiling a directory of greenhouse and ornamental IPM professionals to improve the communications network among experts in the region.

Community: The Community CWG members represent diverse stakeholders from across the region and communicate regularly via a targeted email server provided by the Center. This CWG addresses pest management in settings that do not fall under the umbrella of production agriculture but that effect the economics, health and quality of communities, such as schools, homes, landscapes, buildings, parks, and other recreational areas.

Livestock/Field Crops: The Livestock and Field Crops CWG hopes to produce a regional prioritization of research and extension needs by refining the 1996 statewide IPM needs assessment database. They also plan to gather and index a list of extension IPM resources from the across the region.

Public Health IPM: The Public Health CWG maintains a focus on the management of insect vector-borne illness such as Lyme disease or West Nile virus (as opposed to anthrax or other diseases spread by animals). This group offers a particularly valuable perspective because of the limited number of people in the public health pest management field, despite the fact that it is a timely topic. This group is establishing goals that will help communities protect both public health and the environment.

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Links to each Information Network Project are available at the NE PMC site.

Information Network Projects

NE PMC uses a competitive grants program to help build and extend its information network. Seven "information network projects" involving all twelve states in the region have been funded. New England’s Pest Management Network (NEPMNet) is funded as one project that includes the New England states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont), with the University of Maine as the lead institution. Projects in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and West Virginia are working together as the Mid-Atlantic Information Network for Pesticides and Alternative Strategies (MAINPAS). The Pennsylvania project, known as the Pennsylvania Pest Management Information Center (PA PMIC), also cooperates with other states in the region.

Project leaders are spearheading efforts to produce commodity-specific pesticide use surveys, crop profiles, and pest management strategic plans (PMSPs). These products are essential in setting research, extension, and regulatory priorities. Each project supports its own web site including news, IPM recommendations for specific crops, directories, communication tools, and updates on regulatory decisions to name a few. Links to all these projects can be found on the NE PMC home page, at nepmc.org.

Major Efforts

Crop profiles: tomatoes, potatoes
PMSPs: apple

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Ron Stinner of the National Science Foundation’s Center for IPM, located at North Carolina State U., coordinates the national center website, which links the four regions nationwide.

World Wide Web Site and Online Databases

The Northeastern Pest Management Center web site (nepmc.org) is the focal point of our online information and communications system. Design and maintenance of the site is accomplished in conjunction with other regional centers and the information technology support group at North Carolina State University. This site includes a great deal of useful information on many aspects of pest management in the region and across the nation. New material and links are added routinely. Some of the items included are: news, crop profiles, pest management strategic plans, crop production statistics, new pest management technologies, pesticide use data, funded research projects, project reports, and grant opportunities.

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Northeastern Pest Management Center’s winter newsletter written by Elizabeth Myers.

Newsletters

NE PMC produces a newsletter called In the Center that is distributed in print and available on the web site. In the Center is mailed to 1,800 recipients, including grower organizations; agricultural consultants; environmental, agricultural and consumer advocacy organizations; federal and state legislators; news media; food processors; growers and other producers; regulatory agencies; land-grant researchers; NASS and other government agencies; university administrators; and others. The Center staff has initiated a reader survey that will allow us to refine distribution methods and content to best serve our audience. People involved directly in the Center stay up to date with current activities by reading the NE PMC Insider (nepmc.org/insider/current.html), a monthly electronic newsletter for participants in the Center. Each issue gathers information from contacts within the NE PMC, and provides updates about funding opportunities, personnel changes in IPM programs, news from CWGs and information network projects, pest management workshops and seminars, new publications, new research efforts and programs, research results, and news about activities at the Center.

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National Collaboration

NE PMC has worked with leadership of the other three regional Centers, the National Science Foundation Center for Integrated Pest Management, and the USDA to coordinate development. This collaboration includes participation in national pest management meetings and conference calls, hosting an email list server, presentations at other regions’ Pest Management Center meetings, service on grant review panels and staff search committees for other regions.

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Members of the Greenhouse and Ornamental Commodity Working Group (GO-IPM), tour Brookside Gardens in Columbia, Maryland during their 2002 meeting.

Regional Collaboration and Synergy

One of NE PMC’s major roles is to help northeastern states collaborate on projects
that individual states might not be able to carry out. For example, the Center facilitates the creation of PMSPs, which outline the current pest management practices and address future needs for individual commodities within a particular region. PMSPs are developed by groups of stakeholders (such as growers, consultants, environmentalists, regulators, university researchers, or extension staff) who work cooperatively to identify research, regulatory, and educational priorities for programs that support a transition to improved pest management practices in the future. NE PMC’s coordinating role helps to utilize IPM expertise in each state while reducing duplication of effort and promoting the synergistic effects of collaboration.

The Center also facilitates collaboration on grant projects. For example, NE PMC organized a conference call among several scientists resulting in the submission of a successful grant proposal that garnered $1.8 million from the Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program. The project, called "Reduced-risk Pest Management Programs for Eastern Tree Fruits," is led by Peter Shearer of Rutgers University. Support activities such as these are a major function of NE PMC and contribute to major research and extension projects that address issues of concern to the region.

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