| Connecticut: No Beating Around the Bush with Nursery IPM | |
photo by Carrie Koplinka-Loehr
As mist wraps around the rhododendrons at Planters' Choice Nursery, the
sixth tractor trailer truck of the day pulls in. Workers in yellow slickers
and boots begin to unload dozens of potted junipers, placing them in the
130-acre nursery. One of the men spots a small dark weevil on the crop and
radios the office manager, Barbara, for advice. "Get Tim to look at
it," she says. "He's out there scouting the boxwood."
Within a few moments Tim Abbey, coordinator of nursery crops IPM at the
University of Connecticut, captures the beast and quietly confirms that
it is a black vine weevil. Not good news.
For this nursery in Newtown, Connecticut, arrival of contaminated stock
puts to the test their commitment to IPM. Barbara calls the nursery that
shipped the product. Tim confers with the on-site nursery propagator, Mary
Broadhurst, and the owner, Chuck Newman. Should the load be refused? Destroyed?
These are the kinds of choices a nursery faces each day, and the outcome
depends on who's steering the ship.
Chuck Newman first met Tim at Connecticut Agriculture Day in Hartford and
later asked if Planters' Choice could be a site for Tim's IPM program. "It's
been a real success having Tim come here," says Chuck. "People
at UConn have always been good to us." Since 1995 Tim has visited weekly
to scout for pests and advise on proper treatments, timing, and spot spraying.
By following IPM techniques, the nursery has cut insecticide use by 60 percent
in one year.
"People in Washington have been talking about cutting insecticide use,
and here's a way to do it!" says Chuck. "If we could cut back
and eliminate some of the environmental hazards, it would be a great move
forward. We'd have a less toxic America - less air pollution, less water
contamination." Chuck's participation in a team-building IPM Initiative
meeting likewise reflects his enthusiasm. "I felt really good about
the meeting because IPM has a lot of promise," he says, his eyes animated
in his broad face.
Planters' Choice stocks about 800 different species of trees, shrubs, and
vines, yet Chuck and Tim still consider the nursery small enough for scouting
and preventive measures to have a marked effect. "We're able to use
less toxic insecticides because we're catching the insects when they're
smaller," says Chuck. He estimates that it takes less time to have
an IPM program than to have a calendar spray program. Time is invested in
inspecting plant material instead of spraying. "IPM makes the public
happier, too," he says.
So far their IPM program has focused on insects, but Chuck and Tim see a
need to manage diseases with IPM practices. Planters' Choice offers disease-resistant
crabapples and lilac hybrids, and the owners are willing to try more. For
Tim, that is the reason this IPM nursery is so successful. "There's
a willingness to learn and try something else," he says. "To ask
questions. To make a difference."
State IPM Coordinator
Lorraine Los
University of Connecticut
Plant Science Department
U-67, Room 229
1376 Storrs Road
Storrs, CT 06269-4067
860-486-6449; llos@canr1.cag.uconn.edu
return to IPM in the Northeast Region 1996 Report, Table
of Contents