2011 Highlights: UC IPM Annual Report

UC IPM offers new online courses

Urban-area pesticide applicators who take UC IPM’s newest online courses can learn to reduce pesticides in rain and irrigation runoff and to correctly calibrate their application equipment. While improving their knowledge, applicators will earn continuing education credits from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

UC IPM released Urban Pesticide Runoff and Mitigation early in the year. The four-credit course covers basic IPM principles, properties of pesticides, the ways pesticides get into waterways, and practical steps applicators can take to keep pesticides from moving away from where they are applied. The remainder of the course highlights herbicides as well as bifenthrin and fipronil, important insecticides that are being detected in California waterways.

Pesticide Application Equipment and Calibration for professionals working with turf and landscapes gives a step-by-step approach to calibrating many types of application equipment to ensure the correct amount of pesticide is applied to a treatment area.

Handouts highlight the key points of each course, while quizzes throughout the narrated modules break up the instruction and reinforce the material. Users who review individual modules within the course and pass a final test receive a certificate of completion.

To view these courses and the supplemental training material, see http://ipm.ucanr.edu/training/.

Funded by California Department of Pesticide Regulation, the work was carried out by UC IPM Interactive Learning Developer Cheryl Reynolds with input from UC IPM’s Tunyalee Martin, Cheryl Wilen, Mary Louise Flint, and Joyce Strand as well as Cooperative Extension Advisor Darren Haver and Cooperative Extension Specialist Jay Gan.

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