Annual Reports

1996—IPM Education and Publications

The IPM Education and Publications office compiles publications, photographs, and other educational materials to assist growers, pest control advisers, landscapers, home gardeners, and others in their efforts to carry out IPM programs. Several types of publications and educational tools are produced, but the backbone of the IPM publications effort consists of three publication series: the IPM manuals, the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines, and the Pest Notes.

The IPM manuals are 100- to 250-page books providing in-depth information on the range of pests that attack a given commodity; they are extensively illustrated with color photographs and line drawings. The UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines is a readily updatable series written by UC faculty, specialists, and advisors containing brief biologies and up-to-date management information including the University's suggestions for chemical and nonchemical controls in various agricultural crops and turf. Pest Notes is a series of short publications on specific home, garden, landscape, and nonagricultural pest problems.

The IPM Education and Publications staff includes Senior Writers Steve Dreistadt and Larry Strand, who work principally on producing IPM manuals; UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines and Pest Note Coordinator Barbara Ohlendorf; Patricia Gouveia, who is writing an IPM study guide for pest control advisers; Garden CD-ROM Coordinator Cheryl Reynolds; and Desktop Publishing Specialist and Assistant Editor Peg Brush; and Administrative Assistant Christine Joshel. UC Cooperative Extension IPM Specialist Mary Louise Flint is director of IPM Education and Publications.

Accessing IPM Publications

Information contained in the Project's IPM publications are available in several different forms and from various sources. Over the last year, IPM Education and Publications staff have worked closely with the UC IPM Project's Computer Systems group to make many publications and photographic images available on the World Wide Web.

UC DANR Communication Services. All the IPM manuals and Pest Management Guidelines can be ordered from the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Communication Services offices at UC Davis and Oakland. Pest Management Guidelines are available either as a complete set by subscription or as single crop guidelines. Slide sets of all the color photographs contained in the IPM manuals are available from the Communication Services office at UC Davis.

UC Cooperative Extension Offices. IPM manuals, Pest Management Guidelines, and Pest Notes can be purchased at most county UC Cooperative Extension offices. Look for the UC Cooperative Extension listing in the government pages of your phone book's white pages.

World Wide Web. The UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines and the Pest Notes are also available at the UC IPM Project home page. The WWW editions of these publications include thousands of color photographs of the pests and damage symptoms plus hyperlinks to information such as degree-day tables or detailed monitoring recommendations. The electronic format allows rapid updating as pesticide registrations and other management information changes.

Other. A few free publications are available directly from the IPM Education and Publications office.

New or Revised For '95-96!

The UC Statewide IPM Project is committed to keeping its publications up-to-date as well as releasing new titles on topics important for pest managers. Several publications were newly released or revised in the last year.

Strawberry and Avocado Bilingual Quick Guides. The IPM Education and Publication staff, especially Peg Brush, Mike Trulson, and Larry Strand, worked closely with IPM Advisor Phil Phillips and Photographer Jack Kelly Clark in the production of two photo field guides for Spanish speaking growers and workers in avocados and strawberries. These publications feature about four dozen color photos each of important pests and beneficials with descriptions in Spanish and English. Phillips is using the Quick Guides in his hands-on training workshops and they are also available from UC DANR Communication Services.

Color Photo Supplements for the Pest Management Guidelines. Accurate identification of pests and beneficials is fundamental to all IPM programs, so there is a need for good color photographs for all crops. However, developing IPM manuals with hundreds of pictures and detailed information takes many years and substantial funds; it has taken 15 years to produce manuals for 15 crops. To fill the need for color photographs, we have initiated a series of color photo supplements to accompany the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines.

Color photo supplements to the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines were released for dry beans and sugarbeets.

These supplements will contain anywhere from 25 to 45 pictures of major pests and disease symptoms. Together with the updated Pest Management Guidelines for the appropriate crop, they will make a complete pest management package.

Color photo supplements were produced for sugarbeets and dry beans in summer 1996 and an onion/garlic photo supplement is in production. They are available through county Cooperative Extension offices and DANR Communication Services. Barbara Ohlendorf and Larry Strand worked closely with the sugarbeet and dry beans workgroups and photographer Jack Clark to get the needed photographs; Peg Brush produced them using digital images.

Revision of Integrated Pest Management for Cotton in the Western United States. The long awaited revision of the cotton IPM manual was released in September of 1996. The revision was coordinated by Barbara Ohlendorf and involved over 40 faculty, specialists, and advisors from California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The new edition contains substantial new information on plant mapping as it relates to pest management plus complete revisions of most of the major pest sections, including lygus, whiteflies, aphids, pink bollworm, nematodes and Verticillium and Fusarium wilts.

UC IPM Pest Management Guideline Revisions. The UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines require constant updating to keep them current. Barbara Ohlendorf worked with the authors of over 20 of the 35 guidelines to produce updates over the last year, including major revisions of the guidelines for cotton, pear, pistachio, turf, rice, grapes, and onion/garlic. The Guidelines also got a new look with a new, easier-to-update design by Peg Brush.

Pest Notes. The Pest Notes series for home, garden, and landscape was launched in early 1995. Twenty new Pest Notes were released in 1995-96, bringing the total number to 44. New Pest Notes were written for carpet beetles, clothes moths, cockroaches, creeping woodsorrel and Bermuda buttercup, ground squirrels, pocket gophers, voles, nutsedge, wild blackberry, spiders, fungus gnats, Eucalyptus longhorned borer, foliage and branch diseases, lace bugs, peach leaf curl, poison oak, snails and slugs, thrips, walnut husk fly, and mistletoe.

Photos on the World Wide Web. A major project for the IPM Education and Publications staff was identifying and proofing the photos for inclusion within the Pest Management Guidelines on the UC IPM Project WWW site. Not only are these photos being used by people going directly to our site, but many other University of California Home Pages, such as the UC Davis Vegetable Crops Center, the UC Davis Pomology Center, and the UC Davis Environmental Horticulture Department, have made the guidelines and photos a key feature of their WWW sites. In addition, other states are including links to our crop guidelines in their Web pages. This is a continuing project; over the next year, we expect the images and hyperlinks to increase substantially.

Major Projects Under Way

IPM Manuals and other books. New IPM manuals are being compiled for stone fruits (Larry Strand) and floriculture (Steve Dreistadt). The stone fruits manual is a major production involving stone fruits workgroups and covering apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, prunes, and cherries. The floriculture manual will include pests of several hundred flower and ornamental foliage plants and has been an active project of members of the floriculture workgroup. A Natural Enemies Handbook is being compiled by Steve Dreistadt and Mary Louise Flint, and is intended to be a well-illustrated, practical guide to the identification and biology of beneficial organisms for agricultural crops, gardens, and landscapes.

Senior Writer Larry Strand, right, works with Plant Pathologist Bill Manji to gather material with typical disease symptoms for inclusion in the upcoming stone fruits IPM manual.

IPM Study Guide for Pest Control Advisers. A new project that got underway in October 1995 was the writing of an integrated pest management text for people studying for the California Pest Control Adviser examination. In the past, PCAs have not been examined specifically on the principles of IPM. This project, which also includes the development of new exam questions in the area of IPM and other licensing areas, will set new baseline knowledge standards for pest control advisers in California, with increased expectations in integrated pest management. Senior Writer Patricia Gouveia is compiling the study guide and working closely with experts and practitioners to develop knowledge expectations (or performance objectives) in all areas in which pest control advisers are licensed.

This project's genesis came directly from requests by the major professional pest control consultant association in the state, the California Agricultural Production Consultants Association (CAPCA). The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR) is committed to using the study guide and exam questions in its regulatory programs. Funded by grants to Mary Louise Flint from the US EPA, CDPR, and the USDA, this project involves close cooperation from all these agencies as well as representatives from CAPCA, Association of Applied Insect Ecologists (AAIE), and an interdisciplinary group of specialists and advisors from the University of California. The study guide will be completed in 1998.

A CD-ROM for Gardens and Landscapes. A second new project initiated in fall 1995 was the development of a CD-ROM-based program to assist horticulture advisors, master gardeners, retail nursery personnel, and others who help home gardeners in the diagnosis and management of pest problems. This program is being compiled by Cheryl Reynolds under the direction of Principal Investigators Mary Louise Flint, Computer Systems Manager Joyce Strand, and Fresno County UCCE Horticultural Advisor Pam Elam, and an advisory team of horticultural advisors, master gardeners and retail nursery personnel.

Cheryl Reynolds demonstrates prototype of new CD-ROM diagnostic program being developed for master gardeners, horticultural advisors, and retail nursery staff. (Photo by Mary Lou Flint)

The CD-ROM will allow a user to specify visual symptoms or look at color photographs to identify a problem. Once the problem is identified, the system provides recommended management strategies emphasizing least toxic alternatives.

A prototype of the module for tomato pests and problems was field tested by the advisory team in summer 1996. The tomato module includes 32 invertebrate and pathogen pests and disorders plus 47 weeds and 10 vertebrates that cause problems generally in California gardens and about 400 color photos. The fruit tree and vegetable components should be completed in 1997, with work on pests of landscape trees and shrubs following thereafter.

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