
More details: leafy spurge IPM
project stored-grain IPM project 
Two New Integrated Pest Management Projects
UnderwayBy Linda
Cooke and Kathryn Barry
Stelljes September 3, 1997Rangeland weeds and stored-grain bugs are targets of two new
five-year areawide integrated pest management (IPM) research projects of
USDAs Agricultural Research
Service. IPM aims at finding ways to control pests with less reliance on
pesticides--for example, by monitoring pest levels to see if pesticide is
needed or by substituting a pests own natural enemies. The new IPM projects--the third and fourth led by ARS since
1995--will target lesser grain borers and other pests found in grain elevators,
and a rangeland weed called leafy spurge. Leafy spurge infests about 5 million acres in at least 29 states.
IPM controls will be developed and demonstrated at sites in Montana, North and
South Dakota and Wyoming. Leafy spurge costs these states $144 million
annually. New control methods will lower costs and reduce reliance on
herbicides. The project is being led by ARS along with USDAs
Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service, other federal and state agencies and universities in
the four states. Stored-grain insects annually account for multi-million dollar
losses. ARS, Kansas State University and Oklahoma State University researchers
will team up on a project aimed at reducing reliance on insecticides. They will
improve insect monitoring and develop alternatives to fumigation, such as
cooling storage facilities. ARS has two other five-year areawide IPM partnership projects in
progress. To reduce
codling
moths in Pacific Northwest orchards, one project uses an ARS-developed
synthetic version of the female moths chemical sex attractant. Male moths
cant find real females. The other project, against
corn rootworms in the Midwest, uses an ARS-developed bait laced
with a feeding stimulant and a tiny dose of insecticide--95 to 98 percent less
than is applied in conventional spray. Scientific contacts: (Leafy spurge) Paul C. Quimby,
ARS Northern Plains
Agricultural Research Laboratory, Sidney, Mont., phone (406) 482-2020, fax
482-5038, [email protected]; (Stored grain) David W.
Hagstrum, ARS U.S. Grain
Marketing Research Center, Manhattan, Kan., phone (785) 776-2718, fax
776-2792, [email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |