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Tree Fruit Growers Get Pest Advice from Toll-Free Hotline - April 2000
April 14, 2000
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA –Pennsylvania tree fruit growers now can get the latest pest and pest management information for their orchards through a toll-free hotline operated by the Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program.
The hotline, (800) PENN-IPM, also provides pest information for other crops, including sweet corn, potatoes, tomatoes, turfgrass and ornamental plants. Callers also can find out about scheduled pesticide applicator training sessions and other meetings of interest to growers.
Tree fruit information on the hotline includes pest and beneficial insect development for regions across the state, helping growers to determine which pests to scout for at different times during the season. The hotline also informs growers how to use pesticides properly.
Greg Krawczyk, research associate at the Penn State Fruit Research and Extension Center in Biglerville, says the hotline summarizes information from Penn State's Tree Fruit Production Guide and from the center's "Fruit Times" newsletter.
"The newsletter contains management information on topics such as fertilizing newly planted apple trees, using insect data from pheromone trap counts and dealing with apple scab, fire blight and other diseases," says Krawczyk.
Messages at (800) PENN-IPM are updated frequently during the growing season -- sometimes as often as daily during critical management periods -- and are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Pest management specialists from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Penn State's entomology and plant pathology departments, and county offices of Penn State Cooperative Extension contribute their time and expertise to keep the information current and useful.
The system also includes a "fax-on-demand" function. For tree fruit information, the caller simply requests a fax and indicates his or her fax number. The system will send a fax with in-depth information about tree fruit, graphs of insect activity over time and other data.
IPM is an approach to managing pests such as insects, diseases, weeds and animals by integrating appropriate physical, biological and chemical tactics that are safe, profitable and environmentally compatible. The Pennsylvania IPM program is a collaboration between Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture aimed at promoting integrated pest management in both agricultural and nonagricultural situations. For more information, call (814) 865-2839, or visit the program's Web site at http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/