Integrated Pest Management Systems

IMPACT REPORT FOR 2009
INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
DR. CAROL SUTHERLAND, EXTENSION ENTOMOLOGIST, NMSU &
STATE ENTOMOLOGIST, NM DEPT. AGRICULTURE



“Integrated pest management” ---as it pertains to entomology---is an appealing but challenging concept for Master Gardeners, Pesticide Applicators, farmers, ranchers and the general public throughout the state. New Mexico’s County Extension Agents and I address all of these audiences every year, some for the first time and others as a continuation of client training or recertification. I present some program material directly to county clientele at the request of the Agent; I provide some program material and training to agents so they can edit and present it to clientele in their own words. Some program material is delivered to clientele as a result of cooperative scheduling between another specialist and agents eager to provide a training site and opportunity for clients to be trained or recertified---as for Pesticide Applicator Training.

For the general public, most people consider arthropods as general pests coming out of nowhere, causing damage to anything and everything and requiring immediate and complete control with the handiest pesticide. Educational programs I create for these audiences are aimed at demystifying insects, arachnids and their relatives, explaining their various roles in nature, damaging stages (if any), and interactions with other arthropods. Most audiences find these discussions interesting, finding several insects in the presentation that they have experienced. While they listen to the definition of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and concepts behind it, they still struggle with the difference between dynamic management of certain arthropod populations and eradicating them from the premises. Some members of the audience also seem to have unrealistic expectations of pesticides and their efficacy; some are certain that all pesticides are deadly dangerous and are highly detrimental to any living thing as well as the environment. At the other end of the spectrum are those that want information on just ‘organic’ or ‘just reduced risk’ pesticides that they are certain are just as effective as the products used in commercial agriculture but without the negative effects on non-target organisms and the environment. The truth is somewhere in between for insecticides and miticides. With the Master Gardener programs and those I do for general gardening/landscape audiences, I stress the importance of pest identification as a necessary means of accessing more information about an organism, its host range, season of activity, damaging stage(s), damage potential, impacts of various biotic and abiotic factors on that pest population, and---lastly---what some appropriate and registered ‘last ditch’ pest control products could be considered. In 2008-2009, I presented basic entomology and IPM classes plus displays of specimens to over 400 Master Gardener interns in 16 classes in 14 counties (including the Tri-State Navajo project) with shorter versions for 79 people in general gardening audiences in 4 counties. In each class, clientele self-reported that they learned to distinguish at least 10 common arthropods they could encounter in garden or landscape situations plus assorted details on life cycles, damaging stages or applicable plant management strategies, not just insecticides, that they could use to mitigate pest damage. At the end of each class, clientele frequently commented they were previously unaware of how interesting and complicated applied entomology could be; they appreciated the more in-depth discussion of arthropod control through IPM methodology. Follow-up classes on safe use of (all) pesticides by County agents taught clientele the advantages and disadvantages of using different categories of pesticides for managing their gardens and landscapes; reading the label before purchase or use is most important, providing the consumer with critical site/pest combinations, directions for mixing, application and storage plus safety precautions. The objective is to make people think through their pest management solution before jumping directly to pesticides, some of which may not be appropriate for the pest; some uses also may not be justified or even appropriately applied. Master Gardeners and gardening class clientele learn the same requirements for conventional synthetic pesticides also apply to “organic” or “reduced risk” products which are increasingly popular. The agents and I caution these audiences about the importance of reducing unnecessary toxicants in the environment.

This specialist responded to over 1300 requests directly or indirectly through County Agents for insect (et al.) identification and control measures in 2008-09. Several agents guesstimated anywhere from 20-35% of the inquiries received in their offices this year involved questions about plant problems. For each inquiry I received, I provided biological information on each organism sent for identification and made control recommendations including non-insecticidal measures that might be used then or in the future. Pesticide suggestions were made for at least 75% of these inquiries after editing lists of appropriate, currently registered materials retrieved from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture; these lists record both synthetic and natural products since both must be registered by NM Department of Agriculture if pesticidal claims are made by the manufacturer or distributor. In 2008 one Bernalillo County agent was confident that most clientele (over 1000) were receptive to pest management information he provided; further, he was fairly certain that at least 80% used the information to control their particular pest situations. Although this is a densely populated, highly urban county, agent contacts, similar results are likely in other more rural parts of the state according to information provided by agents in Luna and Otero Counties. I invite all of the county agents to forward photographs and especially specimens to me for identification rather than have them spend extra time struggling with identifying the problem and researching management information from books or assorted web-sites; going to the wrong web-sites or dated reference books can produce incorrect or tainted results inappropriate for clients. Targeted, timely and accurate information associated with arthropod identification from this specialist and cooperating agents enhances the reputation of New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension system. While I routinely receive thanks from agents and clients alike for programs presented and information requested, The Otero County Agent commented in 2009 that ‘at no other place can a person walk in without an appointment with an insect,….have it identified and receive a virtual library of information for its management in their garden/landscape environment within minutes. With the growing interest in cultivating home gardens to stem the tide of a tenuous economy, the ready availability of the agricultural agent (…and Extension Specialists…) at the Cooperative Extension Office is invaluable.’

Pesticide Applicator Training (PAT) classes are another category of audiences that I address annually about basic and applied entomology, IPM and pest control practices. However, pesticide applicators attend class and study educational manuals, some of which I wrote, because they need to be licensed or maintain their licenses to purchase and use restricted use pesticides in New Mexico as part of their jobs. In 2008-09, I trained or certified 370+ PAT students or licensed applicators in 6 workshops open to all New Mexicans. I also presented basic and applied information about insect and mite pests for 20 other pest-related conferences scattered around the state organized by County Agents and special interest groups, typically resulting in one more CEU for an estimated 400 pesticide licensees (Private, Public and Commercial categories) in various categories. If, as the Bernalillo County Agent guesstimated for his PAT programs’ impacts, each individual trained or recertified had an annual salary of $35,000, our cooperative efforts in scheduling PAT workshops resulted in an economic impact (employment dollars) of approximately $27 million.

Introducing youth and the general public to arthropods continues with 8 displays and 42 presentations to audiences from K-12 (and associated adults) in 2008-09. For about half of these audiences, these programs were their first opportunities to view insects “up close,” to hear more about unique arthropods in the displays and to host an entomologist or science specialist from an out-of-town university, NMSU. In addition, I prepared two large (26+ drawers) displays at the Southern New Mexico and Southwestern New Mexico Fairs for an estimated 6500 viewers over 6 days. Additional outreach efforts were to under-served (in terms of NMSU campus faculty visits) and rural counties, including two counties with only Navajo clientele. 4H programs have adopted both the “100 Common Insects of New Mexico” and the Curriculum (“Insects Rule the Earth”) written by Dr. David Richman and Carol Sutherland while Future Farmers of America have adopted “100 Common Insects…” and a machine-graded answer sheet tailored to the arthropod identification quiz given by us at their State convention and competition. In 2008-09, 142 youth (middle school or high school) participated in statewide 4H and FFA entomology competitions. I use both of these manuals plus a DVD that we produced originally in 1985 to teach two classes annually of NMSU’s AXED 485 class (18 students in 2008-09) for future teachers of agriculture and county agents. Outreach efforts like these and the competitions are used to interest students in arthropods, the sciences and, potentially, to become students at New Mexico State University.

The agent has made 620 contacts dealing with Integrated Pest Management in Luna County. These contacts came from home visits, phone calls, office visits, and workshops. The agent also conducts a weekly radio show to help educate the people of Luna County about pests and problems that he seeing throughout the county dealing with pest management. Workshops for this year include Pesticide Private Applicators, Church gaardening, and Schools. The pesticide workshop was held by Luna CES and NMDA, there was 37 Agriculture producers present. 20 of the attendees were there for the 5 CEU's credits that were offered while the other 17 were there to take the private applicators test to receive their card. The Mormon church asked the agent to present a workshop at their garden club meeting, this was done in early spring to help the people plant their gardens. There was 22 gardeners present at the workshops, we discussed several concepts of pest management and lawn and garden tips. The workshops presented to the schools were dealing with pest in desert gardens and insects found around Luna County. These were performed by the agent and the Master Gardeners of Luna County. There is two active Master Gardeners here in county, the Master Gardeners help to spread the word of pest management. The Master Gardeners worked a total of 200 hours, this was spent talking with people about gardening and planning for further workshops. They work in the office on Thursdays from 9:00am to 11:00am, while in office they answer the hotline and answer questions regarding pest management. The agent meets with them and discusses problems that they are having and helps to solve the problem. The agent attended meetings with local chemical salesman to share information that was happening with each agency. Scouting techniques,insects, and diseases that were present in crops. By holding workshops and visiting with people the agent will be able to better educate the people of Luna County.

Under the Integrated Pest Management system, there are hundreds of Pest Control business in the State of New Mexico and all of these Pestcide license holders must have 4 hours of continuing education units (CEU's) to re-certify each year. The farmer / rancher Private Applicators must have 5 CEU's every five years to re-certify. It has been my objective to provide the workshops to facilitate these applicators earning their CEU's.

This agent has held several different workshops, both for a fee in a public rented facility, or presenting workshops at their places of business or facilities to which they had free access. There were no fees for those workshops. NMSU Specialists were utilized for some of the workshops, and some were presented by this agent alone.

Those workshops presented were:
December 6, 2008 - Private Applicator training for 5 CEU's. 15 applicators.
December 11, 2008 - City of Albuquerque grounds crew workshop for 4 CEU's. 62 applicators.
February 10, 2009 - Bernalillo County Grounds Maintenance for 4 CEU's. 29 applicators.
June 18, 2009 - UNM Grounds Crew for 4 CEU's. 35 participants.

There were a total of 141 Certified Pesticide Operators provided with the necessary CEU's to re-certify their licenses. For most, their jobs depended upon them having the licenses for employment. If the salaries averaged $35,000 per year, the economic impact of employment dollars would total $4,935.000.00. There was also a lot of valuable rapport with the interaction of the City, County, and UNM networking to achieve these results. This County Agent is retiring in three days and plans to continue to provide these educational services for a fee. This program is vital to the licensees and they have demonstrated a willingness to pay for the training.

Even though there is a strong and growing interest in taking a “green” approach to general lifestyle questions, the overuse of (and over-reliance on) chemical pesticide solutions results in a considerable amount of mis-applied toxic material in the landscape every year. The agent tries very diligently to teach an IPM approach to pest management in his dealings with the general public and the commercial operators.

Agent works with a number of local and regional landscape maintenance firms and public institutions, helping them identify damaging insects and diseases, and helping them understand the underlying environmental conditions that may be contributing to the severity of expression. Agent has worked with TruGreen Chemlawn, Waterwise Landscapes, Tree Sculptors, National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque BioPark, Scientific Tree Care, Craig Pest Control, Expo New Mexico, HeadsUp Landscaping, City of Albuquerque Parks Division, Arca Organics, A-Ron’s Pest Control, Divine Earth Aesthetic Pruning, Baca’s Trees, and many, many others. Consultations usually result in accurate identification of casual organisms and/or conditions, and recommendations to alleviate conditions and control organisms. Agent has not developed formal evaluation document for these people to use to provide feedback, but judging from the number of repeat callers and the number of referred callers, agent has become seen as a reliable expert to this industry.

The Master Gardener trainings emphasize many of the same concepts. Interns are taught about good plant selection, appropriate care, and the intricacies involved in accurately identifying organisms that may or may not be pests. We teach them to recommend holistic approaches to landscape problems, which may or may not involve the use of pesticide materials. This season, our class numbered almost sixty new interns. We administer a pre- and post-class knowledge survey, and see an average increase in knowledge, as captured by the survey, from 64% correct to 81% correct. As many of these questions deal with the underlying factors affecting pest pressures, as well as with common pests themselves, it gives up a good indication that our training is working well to inform the Master Gardeners, who in turn communicate with thousands of area residents every year. Presentations that agent developed and presented for the 2009 Master Gardener series that related to IPM include: Basic Soil Science; I.P.M. and Pesticide Safety; Plant Identification; Weeds of Albuquerque; and Basic Arboriculture.

Agent fields from five to fifteen calls per day, on average, during the busy season (April through August). Of these, a good number have to do with pest control questions. These are mostly landscape issues, but agent will take calls related to indoor pests as well. On the majority of these types of calls, agent is able to make an accurate diagnosis of the problem, and suggest both fundamental corrections to the plants’ environment, and where appropriate, chemical control recommendations. Often these latter fall along the line of NOT using a given chemical or pest service, as the use would not be appropriate. Agent has saved homeowners many thousands of dollars in un-necessary pesticide applications, and reduced environmental contamination due to pesticide overuse in the process.

In addition to calls and walk-in clients, agent goes out on field visits quite frequently. Many of these site visits are to individual homeowners, but also include commercial and institutional sites. While this takes some time per client, it also provides the client with the absolute best information. These clients become some of Extension’s best advertisers, a situation which leads to ever more calls.

For most of the clients, changes in knowledge occur at a very basic level. They come to agent knowing very little about a situation, or knowing incorrect information. The new knowledge they go away with should cause many changes in their behavior as it relates to pest control. For some, this change is seen in how they view arthropods in the environment in general (with a strong move away from, “if it moves, it’s bad and must be killed”); for others, it is new information on an existing problem that expands their ability to take actions that will have the desired results. With some of the more experienced clients, be they landscape professionals or life-long gardeners, changes are more subtle and often consist of fitting in a missing piece of the puzzle. These clients would not report as dramatic a change in knowledge or behavior, but the changes they do make certainly result in positive impacts in their efforts.

Many people still consider IPM to be a way to set up a spray program. Knowing that applying control materials is the last resort in a good IPM approach, agent spends much of his effort at the front end: pushing for good species selection, proper planting and irrigation, and ongoing monitoring coupled with patience.

IMPACT REPORT FOR 2008
INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
DR. CAROL SUTHERLAND, EXTENSION ENTOMOLOGIST, NMSU &
STATE ENTOMOLOGIST, NM DEPT. AGRICULTURE

“Integrated pest management” ---as it pertains to entomology---is an appealing but challenging concept for Master Gardeners, Pesticide Applicators, farmers, ranchers and the general public throughout New Mexico. Most untrained audiences initially consider arthropods as general pests, coming out of nowhere, causing damage and requiring immediate and complete control. Educational programs I create for these various audiences are aimed at demystifying insects, arachnids and their relatives, explaining their various roles in nature, distributions, damaging stages (if any), host ranges, interactions with other arthropods and how different plant management practices, not just insecticides, can impact their populations.
In 2007-2008, I presented basic entomology and IPM classes and displays of specimens to 330 Master Gardeners in 11 classes in 8 counties with shorter versions for 53 people in general gardening audiences in 4 counties. The latter were firsts for residents of these underserved, rural counties including 3 audiences in one county on the Navajo Nation. In each class clientele self-reported that they learned to distinguish at least 10 common arthropods they could encounter in garden or landscape situations plus some details on life cycles, damaging stages or applicable plant management strategies, not just insecticides, that they could use to mitigate pest damage. At the end of each class, clientele frequently commented they were previously unaware of how interesting and complicated applied entomology could be; they appreciated the more in-depth approach to arthropod control through IPM methodology. Follow-up classes on safe use of (all) pesticides by County agents taught clientele the advantages and disadvantages of pesticide use for managing their gardens and landscapes; reading the label before purchase or use is most important, providing the consumer with critical site/pest combinations, directions for mixing, application and storage plus safety precautions. Master Gardeners and gardening class clientele learn the same requirements for conventional synthetic pesticides also apply to “organic” or “reduced risk” products which are increasingly popular.
This specialist responded to over 850 requests directly or indirectly through County Agents for insect (et al.) identification and control measures in 2007-08. Pesticide suggestions were made for at least 75% of these inquiries after editing lists of appropriate, currently registered materials retrieved from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture. One Bernalillo County agent was confident that most clientele (over 1000 in 2007-08) were receptive to pest management information he provided; further, he was fairly certain that at least 80% used it to control their particular situations. Results similar to these are likely in other relatively urban parts of the state. Targeted, timely and accurate information like this from this specialist and cooperating agents saves clients from frustration, wasting resources and time, misidentifying their pest problem, over-reacting, over-applying products, applying the wrong products, incorrectly applying products, injuring non-target organisms, themselves and/or the environment.
Much of the same applies to Pesticide Applicator Training (PAT) classes with respect to IPM, basic and applied entomology and pest control practices. However, pesticide applicators attend class and study educational manuals, some of which I wrote, because they need to be licensed or maintain their licenses to purchase and use pesticides in New Mexico as part of their jobs or professions. In 2007-08, I trained or certified 375 PAT students or licensed applicators in 6 classes open to all New Mexicans. County Ag Agents in these 6 counties advertized and arranged these events for the general public and applied to NMDA for CEUs for licensees; in all cases, the CEUs awarded in these classes exceeded the minimums required for standard licensees to maintain their certifications and remain active in their jobs or professions. In recent years, the Ornamental and Turf Training has focused on 10 arthropods commonly encountered on turf and 10 more species often found on ornamentals. I wrote these fact sheets which are now part of the standard Category 3A Study Guide; they are also posted on the Plant Diagnostic Laboratory web site for public access. These PowerPoint programs, especially the one for licensees, are updated and upgraded annually; arthropod specimens are displayed, also.
Introducing youth and the general public to arthropods continues with 17 displays and 81 presentations to audiences from K-12 (and associated adults) in 2007-08. For about half of these audiences, these programs were their first opportunities to view insects “up close,” to hear more about unique arthropods in the displays and to host an entomologist or science specialist from an out-of-town university, NMSU. In addition, I prepared two large (14+ drawers) displays at the Southern New Mexico and Southwestern New Mexico Fairs for an estimated 8500 viewers over 6 days. Of these outreach efforts, 5 were to under-served or rural counties, including one county with only Navajo clientele. 4H programs have adopted both the “100 Common Insects of New Mexico” and the Curriculum (“Insects Rule the Earth”) written by Dr. David Richman and Carol Sutherland while Future Farmers of America have adopted “100 Common Insects…” and a machine-graded answer sheet tailored to the arthropod identification quiz given by us at their State convention and competition. In 2007-08, 121 youth (middle school or high school) participated in statewide 4H and FFA entomology competitions. I use both of these manuals plus a DVD that we produced in 1985 to teach two classes annually of NMSU’s AXED 485 class (12 students in 2007-08) for future teachers of agriculture and county agents. Outreach efforts like these and the competitions are used to interest students in arthropods, the sciences and, potentially, to become students at New Mexico State University.