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Annual Reports
2000—Competitive Grants Programs
CONTENTS:
Michael Rust New Associate Director for Research
UC IPM Projects Address the IPM Continuum
UC IPM Research Furthers Project Mission
UC IPM Mission
Competitive Research
Grants, 2000-2001
Summaries of UC IPM research report projects are online
at UC IPM Web site.
Michael Rust New Associate Director
for Research
Michael Rust, Professor of Entomology at UC Riverside and Director of
the UC Center for
Invasive Species Research, has recently been appointed the UC IPM Project’s
Associate Director for Research. Dr. Rust is an urban-industrial entomologist
who has achieved national recognition for his work; this year he was the
recipient of the National Conference on Urban Entomology’s Distinguished
Achievement Award in Urban Entomology. Dr. Rust succeeds John Menge, Plant
Pathology, UC Riverside, who has been Associate Director since 1997.
The Associate Director works with the UC IPM Project Director to oversee
the annual process of requesting and reviewing proposals submitted by
UC researchers, tracking the progress of funded projects, and identifying
individuals to serve on the UC
IPM Workgroups, which review submitted research proposals.
UC IPM Projects Address the
IPM Continuum
Over its 20 years of service, the UC IPM Project has been sponsoring
research to help growers and pest managers in California move along the
IPM Continuum. Its research workgroups address the continuum from "decision
support" for improved scouting and monitoring, through "biorational uses
of chemicals and biotic agents" which provide reduced-risk options to
conventional pesticides, to "cultural controls" and "biological controls"
intended to identify sustainable, ecologically-based pest control options.
In fact, the majority of projects funded by UC IPM in the past 10 years
have targeted development of cultural and biological control tactics.
Proposals supported by the "applied field ecology" IPM workgroup provide
the more basic science that identifies how pests interact with their hosts
in the environment. Thirty research projects were funded for the 2000-01
year in commodities ranging from alfalfa to walnuts. Four examples of
current research projects are pictured here. Check out our Web site to
get summaries of all research
projects funded by UC IPM since 1995. A list of all projects funded
or finished in 2000-2001
can be found in the section on funded projects.
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The giant
whitefly, Aleurodicus dugesii, is a newly established pest
of many ornamental plants in southern California. Parasites of this
pest imported by UC Riverside Entomologist T. S. Bellows are being
distributed in five southern California counties in cooperation with
local UC Cooperative Extension personnel in hopes that they will establish
and control this pest. |
A combination of host plant resistance,
rotation, and planting date choices are being investigated as nonchemical
alternatives for the control of root
knot nematodes in fresh carrot production by UC Riverside Nematologist
Phil Roberts. Root knot nematodes severely distort carrots, making
them unmarketable.
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The effectiveness of fire
blight control in pears by the biological control agent Pseudomonas
fluorescens strain A506 (Blightban A506) was shown in research
by UC Berkeley Plant Pathologist Steve Lindow to increase threefold
when a surfactant was added to applications. |
UC IPM Research Furthers
Project Mission
Since its inception in 1979, the UC IPM Project has developed,
supported, and funded a competitive
grants program whose goals coincide with the Project's mission
(see box below). To assess the scope and accomplishments of the
IPM Project grants program, UC Davis Agriculture and Resources Economists
Karen Klonsky and Ben Shouse recently conducted a survey of the
Project's research activities during the last 10 years that assessed
the scope and accomplishments of its grants program.
In the survey, principal investigators were asked to identify
anticipated impacts of their completed research projects. Almost
three-quarters of the projects were expected to reduce pesticide
use, and another two-thirds of the projects were expected to improve
pest control (Table 1). Over one-third of the projects were expected
to lower the cost of pest control, increase the social acceptability
of pest control systems, increase the use of natural controls, or
provide pest management methods for organic production.
The survey also revealed the extent of the principal investigators'
interactions with growers, commodity groups, governmental agencies,
pest control advisers, and various units within the university.
Table 2 details the kind of assistance given
to the principal investigator by each of these groups. Notable among
these were UCCE farm advisors, who were frequent participants in
every stage of the research process, managing field trials and collecting
data. Individual growers were instrumental in providing field trial
space for more than half of the IPM projects and assisted in managing
about half of those field trials. Of other individuals and organizations
outside of UC, representatives of commodity groups were more likely
than individual growers, public agencies, or state licensed pest
control advisers to be involved in research proposal development.
Results of the Klonsky-Shouse survey show that the UC IPM Competitive
Grants Program has met its goals of directing research towards more
effective and environmentally sound pest management and marshaling
multiple agencies and disciplines towards IPM programs. A full report of the survey can be found on the IPM Web site.
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TABLE
1. Anticipated Impacts of UC IPM Research Projects Identified
by Principal Investigators |
Anticipated impact
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% projects
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reduced pesticide use
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73
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improved pest control
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67
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lower cost of pest control
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46
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increased social acceptability of pest control systems
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46
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increased use of natural pest control
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39
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pest management methods for organic production
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39
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improved pest outbreak prediction
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27
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addresses FQPA concerns
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26
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improved pesticide resistance management
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19
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alternative to methyl bromide
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16
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addresses water quality concerns
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16
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reduced pesticide drift
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14
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management of recently introduced pests
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14
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reduced risk to farmworker
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7
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TABLE 2.
Assistance Provided by Individuals and Institutions at Various
Stages of the Research Process (Percent of All Projects) |
Person(s) assisting
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Develop proposal
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Provide field trial space
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Manage field trial
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Collect data
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Interpret results
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commodity group rep. |
21% |
4% |
5% |
2% |
3% |
grower
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10
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55
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26
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7
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5
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pest control adviser
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12
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8
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9
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5
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3
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public agency rep.
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8
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4
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4
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4
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4
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UC Senate faculty
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28
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5
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6
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10
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22
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UCCE farm advisor
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39
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19
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29
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26
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22
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UCCE IPM advisor or UC IPM staff
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13
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4
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7
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8
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10
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UCCE specialist
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22
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2
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6
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11
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15
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UC IPM Mission
Since its inception, the mission of the IPM Project has remained
the same:
- to reduce the pesticide load in the environment;
- to increase the predictability and thereby the effectiveness
of pest control techniques;
- to develop pest control programs that are economically, environmentally
and socially acceptable;
- to marshal agencies and disciplines into integrated pest management
programs;
- to increase utilization of natural pest controls.
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