Integrated Pest Management Program secures $1.7 million to spread IPM
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EmailMSU’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program has been awarded a three-year $770,000 USDA NIFA IPM extension grant to deliver resources and advice to farmers and gardeners practicing IPM.
MSU’s Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program has been awarded a three-year $770,000 USDA NIFA IPM extension grant to deliver resources and advice to farmers and gardeners practicing IPM. The Department of Entomology’s Joy Landis and Larry Olsen are co-project directors of the project that includes collaborations with MSU Extension’s IPM educator Erin Lizotte and IPM/cover crops educator Dean Baas. MSU’s proposal was ranked in the top five of the 48 projects selected for funding.
In a second award, Larry Olsen and Lynnae Jess have teamed up with the University of Illinois for the 14th year to manage the North Central IPM Center. Nearly $1 million annually are awarded competitively by USDA NIFA to coordinate the North Central Region (NCR) information system and fund multi-state priority projects.
Growers from farm to garden levels are increasingly reliant on real-time information and face evolving challenges from invasive pests, pesticide resistance and shifting environmental conditions. The IPM extension funding supports an array of efforts raising awareness and increasing skill in use of IPM. Some of the grant activities include providing enhancements and training in the use of MSU’s Enviro-weather, teaching environmentally friendly IPM practices through Smart Gardening, and demonstrating the long-term rotation effects on pest populations in corn-soybean-wheat rotations. Timely advice and reminders from MSU Extension specialists and educators will be promoted through MSU Extension News. Additional collaborators include Mallory Fournier, Beth Bishop and Steve Miller.
A large portion of the NCR IPM Center funds are awarded to support Working Groups. The 16 multi-state, self-directed teams (see list of teams and their accomplishments at www.ncipmc.org/groups.index.cfm) are structured to increase communication and collaboration, develop lists of IPM priorities, write multi-state grants to solve emerging issues and complete projects. Fifty-five MSU specialists and educators participate in one or more WGs. Through their coordination they have successfully obtained over $6 million in USDA and industry grants competitively. The NCR IPM Center also facilitates “signature” programs to coordinate activities and collaborations to increase adoption of IPM in high priority regional and national areas including tribal IPM, urban agriculture IPM, school IPM, indoor air quality and resistance management.
