Progress 08/01/22 to 07/31/23
Outputs Target Audience:The primary stakeholders and target audience of the IR-4 Project's research activities are the domestic growers/farmers of food and non-food specialty crops. Other stakeholders are food processors and others in the food chain who process or sell specialty crops as food. On occasion, growers/farmers of major crops that have concerns about an isolated pest is also a stakeholder. Ultimately, the target audience is the public who consumes the high quality "healthy" specialty crops/food or purchases ornamentals that enhance the environment. The primary stakeholders have significant involvement in directing IR-4's research activities. Involvement starts with their initial submission of a "Request for Assistance" to IR-4 in the Food Program or their response to a Grower Needs Survey in the Environmental Horticulture Program. Any farmer/grower, public sector researcher/extension educator or individual can submit a Request for Assistance to IR-4. The only groups of individuals prohibited from submitting Requests for Assistance are representatives from pesticide (chemical or biopesticide) companies. As IR-4 does not have adequate resources to address all Requests for Assistance, there is efforts to prioritize the most important projects. Stakeholder involvement continues during priority setting process for selection of research. Again, because of resource limitations, IR-4 can only perform research to address the most critical farmer/grower needs for new pest management technology. IR-4 solicits input on the importance of specific projects utilizing a variety of methods including state/regional discussion meetings, web-based nominations of the highest priorities, input from EPA and from the USDA-Regional Integrated Pest Management Centers, and from face-to-face dialogue at the Annual IR-4 National Priority Setting Workshops. The interests of these primary stakeholders are articulated by four main groups including: individual farmers/growers who directly interact with the IR-4 Project; members of the IR-4 Commodity Liaison Committee (CLC), a formal IR-4 Project advisory group consisting of growers, commodity groups, and food processors; members of the Minor Crop Farmers Alliance, a national organization representing farmers, processors and others involved in the production of various horticultural crops from across the U.S. and; State and federal research scientists and extension educators who directly or indirectly represent the interests of specialty crop growers. IR-4's primary deliverable, as recognized by the target audiences, is EPA registrations of crop protection products (chemical pesticides and biopesticides). Approvals or new registrations resulting from IR-4 data are monitored and communicated to stakeholders. Traditional forums documenting new registrations include publication in the Federal Register of new pesticide tolerances or notice of registrations, direct meetings with companies or announcements in trade publications and newsletters. Once these new registrations are confirmed, IR-4 will share the new via publication in the monthly activity reports, quarterly newsletter, and annual reports. Changes/Problems: IR-4 Project is facing unprecedented challenges in our efforts to provide growers of specialty crops with registrations of safe and effective crop protection technology. On top of the list is complex regulatory issues--such as legislative and judicial directives that EPA comply with the provisions of the Endangered Species Act when registering new pesticides and pesticide uses. Because of the uncertainty regarding mitigations and outcomes, many registration actions are on significantly delay or even abandoned. One registrant placed all IR-4 submissions of their products on hold for a year to determine if potential specialty crop use would impact their priority major use. The path forward is not clear. Other regulatoryreassessment actions, including endocrine disruptors, pollinator protection, water, ect. are equally challenging. Pesticide resistance to pest is another factor that is influencing the number of useful tools available to growers. Certain products are no longer efficacious. Variation in international policies influence what can be used in the United States on export crops. Growers often dont know if a product is headed to domestic markets or international when an in-season pesticide application is made. This makes it difficult if US regulations are not harmonized with trading partners. Finally, public perception of pesticides continues to impact what growers can use. IR-4 is placing more emphasis into its Integrated Solutions platform (ISP) to provide growers with solutions while respecting the above mentioned challenges. The ISP marries the favorable characteristic of conventional chemical pesticides with biopesticides and emerging technologies is a system like approach. Now more than ever, the specialty crop community needs the services of the IR-4 Project. Unfortunately, limited government funding along remains an ongoing concern. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?IR-4 maintains a healthy balance of seasoned scientists and up and coming personel who are rapidly learing the IR-4 protocols. Enhanced efforts in training and mentoring have helped progress the new staff on the learning curve. IR-4 continues to have on-going training, to ensure that research in the Food Program is performed according to acceptable processes and directions. Food Program participants must also receive ongoing training to ensure continued compliance to EPA Good Laboratory Practice Regulations (Chapter 40, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 160). These trainings are often "in house" with new staff such as Study Directors or at the IR-4 regional offices, for example, the IR4 Western Region team provides quarterly training webinars that are open to all researchers, please see: http://wrir4.ucdavis.edu/events/Webinars/Past_Webinars.html In 2023, IR-4 Project hosted a national training program that brings together all field scientists, analytical chemists, research managers, study directors, quality assurance and Project management in one location for extensive professional development in Puerto Rico; see link to the event summary; https://www.ir4project.org/events/2023-nec/. In addition to the above, IR-4 continues to provide intern opportunities to Undergraduate and Graduate degree students. IR-4 has hosted students as well as visiting scientists at our facilities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?IR-4 Project Headquarters takes the lead in serving as the focal point in outreach by providing communication to IR-4 Project stakeholders including farmers/growers, commodity associations, food processors, internal IR-4 personnel (State Liaison Representatives, staff at the IR-4 regional offices and analytical laboratories, cooperating ARS scientists), state and Federal government agencies, international partners, registrants of pesticides and biopesticides other interested members of the public. IR-4 has transitioned most of the traditional print materials to electronic frequent electronic bulletins that rapidly highlight successes, challenges and relevant news. In addition over the past year the IR-4 program began publishing "Success Stories in our food (https://www.ir4project.org/fc/food-crop-successes-stories/) and environmental horticulture (https://www.ir4project.org/ehc/environmental-horticulture-research-summaries/) programs. IR-4 does print and provide traditional paper copies of the Year End Summary, a document that summarizes the annual report. The IR-4 Project website (ir4project.org) continues to evolve and improve in layout and content to make this site more user friendly and useful. As cited above, the IR-4 website contains the current news and information about IR-4 activities, with access to the many databases used in the Food, Environmental Horticulture, Biopesticide/Organic Support and Integrated Solutions research programs. Stakeholders can submit a "Request for Assistance" form through the website and most importantly, check the status of IR-4 research on specific crops and pests through the various databases noted above.. IR-4 also uses social media and Constant Contact to "push" information to its stakeholders. Constant Contact subscribers (over 2000) receive monthly updates about IR-4 research and other breaking news related to the program. IR-4 personnel continue to attend and participate in scientific and trade associations meetings in order to contribute presentations concerning IR-4 accomplishments and provide information and updates to particpants and growers. Additionally, IR-4 continues to participate in other events virtually. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? IR-4 continues to receive new request needs for US commodity growers. In 2023, stakeholders submitted 203 new requests for specialty crop registrations. Since 1963, IR-4 stakeholders have submitted 13,797 requests for assistance to the IR-4 Food Use Program. IR-4 asks its stakeholders to select their highest priorities for research at open/transparent priority setting conferences. For 2024, Approximately 170 IR-4 stakeholders attended and prioritized "researchable" residue studies, product performance projects and Integrated Solutions projects at the September 2023 Food Use Workshop in Raleigh, NC. High priority research includes 42 new residue studies , 10 product performance projects (and 18 Integrated Solution projects. Priorities for the Environmental Horticulture Program were established in the 2023 biennial workshop held in Little Rock, AR. During the meeting, attendees voted on the top projects for each program. The results are shown below: National Environmental Horticulture Priority Projects for 2024 - 2025: Pathology - Phytophthora & Pythium Efficacy Pathology - Boxwood Foliar Disease (Blight, Decline, Volutella) Efficacy Pathology - New Disease Management Tool Crop Safety Entomology - Thrips Efficacy Entomology - Scale Efficacy Entomology - New Pest Management Tool Crop Safety Weed Science - Preemergent Herbicide Crop Safety (Select Herbaceous Perennials, Cut Flower, In-Ground Production) Weed Science - Postemergent Herbicide Crop Safety Regional Environmental Horticulture Priority Projects for 2024 - 2025: Botrytis Efficacy (NCR, WSR) Equisetum Efficacy in Christmas Trees (NCR) Lygus Efficacy (WSR) Nematode Efficacy (NER) Pollinator Plant Herbicide Crop Safety (SOR) Root Aphid/Aphid Efficacy (NER) Vascular Streak Dieback Efficacy (SOR) In addition to the above, the IR-4 Project Management Committee approved Biopesticide regulatory support projects including the RNAi of red palm weevil, and the attenuated strain of cucumber green mottle mosaic virus.IR-4 will be focusing on the above research priorities in 2024. Also included are some second year and carryover projects that are needed to complete the appropriate data sets and provide adequate information to make a regulatory decision. In fourth quarter 2023 and early 2024, IR-4 management made field research assignments to appropriate IR-4 region including the dedicated field research centers, and cooperating researchers. IR-4 expects to submit approximately 25 (products) regulatory data packages to EPA with nearly 80 studies covering over 100 stakeholder requests. The Environmental Horticulture program will provide as many as twenty data summaries to crop protection companies for expanded use to horticulture crops. IR-4 intends to allocate more effort on product performance or "value" data development that is needed to alive liability concerns by registrant concerns who support these projects. This adjustment is in response to an increased trend by the crop protection industry to request that IR-4 provide crop safety data or efficacy data prior to them willing to add a new use to their registration. IR-4 will also continue addressing hard to control pest voids by integrating its biopesticide research activities into established Food Crop Product Performance and Environmental Horticulture activities and reserve priorities for organic production stakeholders. This will be accomplished through the integrated solutions approach where biopesticides and conventional chemical pesticides are used in an approach that maximizes management of pests becoming resistant to the crop protection technology. It also allows a focus on using biopesticide products close to harvest to further reduce any potential for residues in the crop as it enters the food supply. This residue mitigation approach will help reduce pesticide harmonization issues that US specialty crop farmers face with exporting crops to international markets
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
The year 2023 was a celebratory one, marking 60 years of The IR-4 Project. True to IR-4's legacy, it was also a year of meaningful results. While regulatory challenges abound, IR-4 keeps evolving--thanks to our purpose-driven community. Successes in 2023 included EPA publication of actions that established 211 new tolerances for 18 active ingredients for food crops. These tolerances support 1613 potential new uses on food crops. This is the highest number of new uses achieved in a calendar year. In the Environmental Horticulture Program IR-4 data supported the product BotryStop which was registered in California contributing to 500 new crop uses. IR-4's registration support actions in 2023 were substantial. Specifically IR-4 submitted to EPA 12 tolerance petitions and 2 Final Reports to the registrant for Label Expansion or Conditional Registration - these covered 92 unique requests (PR #s) for assistance and crop group tolerance updates. Please note that this number was smaller than previous years. This was due to Syngenta Crop Protection placing a moratorium on submission of data for petitions containing their product. This was in reaction to EPA's assessments triggering use mitigations in association of the Endangered Species Act. In addition to the above, 23 data packages were completed but not submitted and 15 draft final reports were submitted to IR- 4's Quality Assurance Unit for Good Laboratory Practice compliance auditing but were not finalized in 2023. Also, 134 Product Performance Reports and 47 Integrated Solutions Reports were posted and/or provided to cooperating companies. Biopesticide registration actions and activities included 2 registrations involving 4 new active ingredients including AF36 Prime (an organic formulation of Aspergillus flavus AF36) and FourSure (combination of 4 atoxigenic Aspergillus flavus strains). Four pre-submission meetings were held with EPA in conjunction with T3 Biosciences (Pseudomonas soli), Sporekill (Potassium salts of Fatty Acids), Silvec (CTV-SoD) and Lepidext (Helicoverpa zea nudivirus 2, HzNV2). IR-4 also submitted avian oral waiver for the Nudivirus of Helicoverpa zea, participated in meetinga, and provided oral and written comments to support the beekeeping industry's position to maintain the jurisdiction of varroacides in EPA versus a potential shift to FDA jurisdiction Internationally, IR-4 provided technical leadership in project planning and implementation of the Global Minor Use Summit IVas well as cooperative efforts with the Minor Use Foundation. Specifically, IR-4 conducted capacity building on biopesticide regulations and Good Laboratory Practices, developed workflow plans and assisted in the structure of a new international database, provided technical advice in the development of an import maximum residue level (MRL) program for mutual acceptance of tolerances to promote export of US commodities to Southeast Asia, organized and hosted four Borlaug Fellows for training at North Carolina State University, UC Davis and the Global MRL Harmonization Workshop in San Diego, CA. In the Environmental Horticulture Program, 22 research summaries were written to support new or update existing registrations, provided to registrants, and posted on the IR-4 website. Over 4,880 field and greenhouse trials contributed to these summaries. IR-4 Project research in 2023 in the IR-4 Food Program included 52 new Magnitude of the Residue Studies; 384 total field trials (354 New/30 Carryover), 65 Product Performance projects involving 143 efficacy/crop safety trials, and 72 field trials that contributed to 35 Integrated Solutions projects. The IR-4 Quality Assurance Unit performed numerous audits and inspections to help ensure that IR-4 remained compliant with EPA's Good Laboratory Practice Regulations. In the Environmental Horticulture Program research included 657 field and greenhouse trials (275 efficacy, 379 crop safety) that contributed to 57 projects.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Uebbing, M.R., Hayden, Z.D., and Hausbeck, M.K. 2023. Conventional and Biopesticide Fungicides for Cucurbit Downy Mildew Control on Cucumber in Michigan. Plant Health Progress, (ja).DOI: :https://doi.org/10.1094/PHP-03-23-0024-RS, using data generated from IR-4 project N0. IS00344 from 2021 and 2022
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Axtell, A. 2023. IR-4s Accomplishments for Crop Group 6-22. 2023 California Dry bean Board Meeting (virtual presentation).
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Batts, R.B., J. J. Baron, and V. K. Pedibhotla. 2023. IR-4: Weed Science Update - Food Crops. 2023 Southeast Regional Fruit & Vegetable Conference, Savannah, GA. Abstract #24 (poster)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Batts, R.B., J. J. Baron, and V. K. Pedibhotla. 2023. IR-4: Weed Science Update - Food Crops. Proceedings of the Weed Science Society of America and Northeastern Weed Science Society joint meeting, Arlington, VA. Abstract #365 (presentation)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Batts, R.B. 2023. Registration Support for Pest Management Tools in Specialty Crops, The IR-4 Project: Purpose, Process, and Productivity. Southeast Vegetable Extension Workers annual meeting, Mills River, NC (Presentation)
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Batts, R., J. Spies, A. Axtell and J. Patel. 2023. IR-4 Project 2023 sweet potato update. NCSU sweet potato field day, Clinton, NC (handout)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Beckerman, J. C. Palmer, E. Tedford, and H. Ypema. 2023. Fifty Years of Fungicide Development, Deployment, and Future Use. Phytopathology 113:694-706.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Patel, J., J. Baron and V. Pedibhotla. 2023. The IR-4 Project: Success and benefits to specialty crop growers. Annual Phytopathological Society meeting, Denver, CO (poster)
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Ross, H. and P. Moore. July 2023. Behind the Scenes for the Bees: How IR-4 Supports Beekeepers and Honey Bees through Research and Regulation. Bee Culture, pages 66-67
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Szczepaniec, A., A. Lathrop-Melting, T. Janecek, P. Nachappa, W. Cranshaw, G.Alnajjar, and A. Axtell. Suppression of hemp russet mite, Aculops cannabicola (Acari: Eriophyidae), in industrial hemp in greenhouse and field, Environmental Entomology, 2023; nvad052, https://doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvad052
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Uebbing, M.R., and Hausbeck, M.K. 2023. Efficacy of organic products for control of powdery mildew on moderately resistant acorn squash, 2022. Plant Disease Management Reports 17:V159, Link: V158.pdf (plantmanagementnetwork.org, using data generated from IR-4 project No. IS00344 from 2022
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