Source: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY submitted to
IMPROVED INTEGRATED DISEASE MANAGEMENT BASED ON SCIENCE-BASED, ACTIONABLE INFORMATION OBTAINED AT DIFFERENT SCALES
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
HATCH
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1016474
Grant No.
(N/A)
Cumulative Award Amt.
(N/A)
Proposal No.
(N/A)
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Aug 7, 2018
Project End Date
Jun 30, 2023
Grant Year
(N/A)
Program Code
[(N/A)]- (N/A)
Project Director
Esker, PA, D.
Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
208 MUELLER LABORATORY
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802
Performing Department
Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Non Technical Summary
Producers of agricultural crops and their advisors want science-based, actionable information with accompanying unbiased guidelines for using the information to both better management their farms and increase profits. The types of actionable information and guidelines that they request to supplement their own knowledge fall into three general categories:Pre-season guidance on optimal crops/cultivars to plant and which management programs to follow derived from science-based predictive models,In-season guidance derived from local observations and weather-driven predictive models regarding risks from specific pests (diseases/insects/resistant weeds) and unbiased options for mitigating these risks,End of season feedback on how the decisions they implemented before and during the growing season impacted their yields and profits.This project will focus on integrating different combinations of empirical research with information technology to develop innovative strategies for management various plant diseases. The interplay between pathogen biology, epidemiology, aerobiology, meteorology, and information technology enables a novel approach to study different pathosystems. Furthermore, the iPiPE platform provides a specific mechanism to build new risk monitoring tools that will enable us to explore different questions of interest, as well as novel approaches for modeling disease risk and the impact of different management tactics.
Animal Health Component
60%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
60%
Developmental
30%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
2120430117075%
2120499117025%
Knowledge Area
212 - Pathogens and Nematodes Affecting Plants;

Subject Of Investigation
0430 - Climate; 0499 - Atmosphere, general/other;

Field Of Science
1170 - Epidemiology;
Goals / Objectives
The goals and objective of this project are to:Identify and quantify the importance of different risk factors that can influence the development of best management packages based on grower production practices. (Dr. Esker)Increase near-real time sharing of observation of pests and beneficial organisms in agriculture. (Dr. Esker and Dr. Isard)Conduct training of growers, consultants and other stakeholders regarding the importance of best management packages, as well as the risks associated with their use, to reduce the impact of diseases on agricultural crops. (Dr. Esker and Dr. Isard)Provide undergraduate students with professional opportunities working with Extension professionals, crop consultants and growers. (Dr. Esker and Dr. Isard)
Project Methods
Directed by Dr. Isard, the iPiPE will accomplish the foliar disease management objective through a set of priority Crop-Pest Programs (CPPs) supported by the iPiPE IT platform, research, undergraduate internship program and IPM evaluation components. Each CPP--focused on a single crop and associated pests in a production region--is comprised of a Coordinator, other contributing extension professionals, undergraduate students, and stakeholders. Program stakeholders include producers and scouts who provide pest observations and benefit from iPiPE outputs that inform pest management decision-making.The iPiPE CPPs incentivize growers and consultants to submit observations on foliar diseases and insect pests by providing tools and information for timely management decision-making.Coordinated by Extension professionals from across the nation, these programs currently address a variety of crops, diseases caused by foliar pathogens as well as other pests, and provide undergraduate students with hands-on extension and diagnostic experiences.Risk-based research is used to prioritize detection efforts for target diseases and pests.The iPiPE CAP was initiated with 7 CPPs and has added 7 new CPPs each year from 2016-2018. Foliar disease and insect pest observations submitted to the iPiPE are housed in a national pest observation repository (UGA Bugwood) to enable future research using geographically extensive, multi-year databases.The ultimate outcome of the iPiPE CAP is to enhance food security and IPM in the U.S. by altering "social" conditions through the use of cyberage technology. This enhancement will be accomplished by creating a "culture" that places high value on real-time sharing of pest observations and information among producers and their crop consultants. This sharing "culture" will lead to improved management of foliar pathogens and other agricultural pests to maintain crop yields and an infrastructure of stakeholders, data, and tools linked by the Web for early detection and rapid diagnosis of foliar pathogens and other pests. Student interns participating in the iPiPE project willgain extensive hands-on experiences that teach the value of sharing pest observations and using derivative products for IPM, improving their prospects for post-internship job and/or graduate school placements.Dr. Isard and the iPiPE Evaluation Team will employ utilization-focused evaluation (Patton 1997) and multimethod research (Brewer and Hunter 2006) to document and measure expected outcomes of the iPiPE CAP.Team members will collect appropriate qualitative and quantitative data throughout the project (Wholey et al. 2004).Primary data collection efforts will include: (i) gathering Web-based user statistics on project activities; (ii) surveying and interviewing participants including producers, crop consultants, extension professionals, and students and their employers/advisors; (iii) administering pre- and post-internship assessments of student learning; (iv) measuring stakeholder learning; and (v) conducting case studies for assessing economic impact of the CAP.Directed by Dr. Esker, the integration of empirical, field-based research with computational methodologies enables a more complete understanding of the risk factors that drive different responses to disease management tactics. The approach is his program focuses primarily on soybean, including the modeling of factors that may drive foliar fungicide response using survey methods, as well as the coordination of an extensive soybean on-farm network. Furthermore, the program focuses on working with researchers to maximize knowledge obtained from multi-year field trials, ranging from work on diseases like charcoal rot in soybean to foliar diseases in corn. Esker and colleagues apply different computational methods to look for patterns in data that are obvious using simple, two-dimensional approaches.Our current approach is also focused on increased understanding of risk factors that drive yield differences in major agricultural crops, especially soybean. We will use on-farm methodologies to examine yield-limiting factors at the local (i.e., farm), regional and state scale in Pennsylvania. This approach integrates into further research that is conducted at the national level of yield losses due to soybean diseases and nematodes, as well as at the global scale where focus is on five major food crops. The combination of approaches applied in the Esker Laboratory enable our future work that is focused on packaging that knowledge into IT platforms that provide growers a mechanism to optimize disease management decisions based on likely scenarios.

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:In Year threeof the field crops epidemiology program, we engaged 870 agricultural producers, industry representatives, scientists, students, and extension professionals on issues related to different risk factors and how they influence crop productivity and best management tactics, as well as statistical modeling methods applied to the agricultural sciences. Changes/Problems:For the field crops epidemiology program, our biggest challenge in year threerelated to changes due to COVID-19 and accessibility to the laboratory for an extended period of time, as well as complications in being able to finalize contracts and travel for several new hires. We continue to monitor this situation and hope that things resolve as soon as possible. The iPiPE CAP was scheduled to terminate in February 2020. USDA NIFA accepted our request for a one-year NCE. Due to COVID-19, the USDA has recently extended the iPiPE CAP NCE for sixmonths until August 2021. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Best management packages and quantitative data tools related to field crop production and statistical analyses of agriculture led by Esker were presented in 21 different programs, reaching 849 participants (Goal 3, Esker). Additionally, we trained two undergraduate students in field and laboratory research (Goal 4, Esker). The current lab has two Postdoctoral Scholars, six graduate students (PSU, University of Costa Rica, Federal University of Vicosa), with two new Postdoctoral Scholar positions that will begin in the next several months, and one new PhD student who deferred enrollment until Spring 2021, given the uncertainty with the COVID-19 pandemic and international travel. Three of the students (Maira Duffeck, Karen Luong, and Michelle Paukett) received awards from the American Phytopathological Society to present their research, and in the case of Maira Duffeck's, she was selected to present her thesis research in the I.E. Melhus Graduate Student Symposium at Plant Health 2020 Online. The iPiPE undergraduate student intern program was completed in 2020 with the final iPiPE workshop (Goal 4, Isard). Ten interns participated in the workshop presenting posters on their efforts the previous summer to engage stakeholders to participate in iPiPE. iPiPE has now provided 99 young agricultural stakeholders from around the country (30 institutions) with extensive hands-on training in pest diagnostics and field collection protocols. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A combination of professional abstracts and manuscripts, hands-on training sessions, webinars/Facebook Live, Twitter, and Penn State Extension's Field Crop News were used to provide stakeholders with relevant information about best management packages and risk associated with different pests and diseases during Year threeof the project. From 21 extension and educational activities, we actively engaged 849 participants. Our Twitter profile increased during Year threeof the project and we now reach approximately 667 researchers and industry representatives where we disseminate information about disease risk and other production issues, as well as opportunities to participate in extension activities. Our group also contributed two recorded videos, 11 extension articles through PSU Extension's Field Crop News, 14 conference abstracts, fourconference proceedings, and tenmanuscripts either published, tentatively accepted, or in review at the moment. We reached our stakeholders using multiple approaches across 19 extension programs, including in-person, webinars, and using Facebook Live. We added another 147 followers on Twitter from 2018-2019. Our efforts during the winter extension season focused heavily on plant parasitic nematodes, fungicide considerations for corn at the tasseling growth stage, and best management practices for wheat, especially related to Fusarium head blight. During the 2020 growing season, we also developed a new set of tools for providing guidance for white mold management in soybean as we tested a model developed in the Midwest and its possible application in the Northeastern US. Lastly, we contributed 10 extension articles to the PSU Extension Agronomy Team'sField Crop News. This newsletter is currently shared with well over 10,000 recipients. During the NCE of the iPiPE CAP, we began creating a community of professional pest risk modelers from the public and private sector to effectively utilize big data, improve modeling resources, and integrate new technologies and approaches to further U.S. food and agriculture enterprises. This community includes pest risk modelers, students, extension professionals, and other researchers interested in developing pest risk information products from around the nation. A workshop involving members of the modeling community of practice scheduled for October 2020 was postponed due to COVID-19. We continued to engage extension professionals located to coordinate Crop-Pest Programs (CPPs) and encourage stakeholders in specific crops/production regions to participate in the iPiPE. Ten undergraduate student interns from CPPs presented posters at the 2020 iPiPE Annual meeting. For the iPiPE CAP, a combination of social media, internet, and traditional means of communication were employed to engage stakeholders in 2020. We publish an iPiPE Newsletter featuring activities of interns working in our Crop-Pest Programs, iPiPE sustainability efforts, and the transition to Ag IO. Monthly additions have been published and distributed via the internet. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In spite of COVID-19, we met the majority of benchmarks for Year threeof the project. Our biggest challenge moving into Year fouris to make sure that new hires are able to travel to Penn State and get established in the proper manner to be successful. Additional goals for Year fourare the continuation of new manuscripts focused on current projects, and it is expected that we have at least five-tennew manuscripts to prepare during the next year (Goal 1, Esker). It is also planned to move into new projects beginning in 2021 for the Soybean On-Farm Network, much of which will be driven by final results from the first three years of research (Goals 1-3, Esker). At the end of year three, the Esker Lab commenced with several studies to diagnose hemp diseases, which will continue into year four, and are being led in the laboratory by our undergraduate researchers (Goal 4). As our extension program had to evolve to address stakeholder needs using more remote tools, we feel we are set up very well to develop hybrid programs that provide our stakeholders with different ways to access information related the field crops disease management (Goal 3, Esker). We will use mixed methodologies for several upcoming workshops on corn, soybean, and wheat, including video, polling tools, and traditional talks to provide our stakeholders with a more interactive environment than we have traditionally done in prior meetings. We will hold the Ag IO Pest Risk Modeling workshop for individuals in the pest risk modeling community of practice in May 2021 (Goal 3, Isard). This workshop, originally scheduled for October 2020, will include pest risk modelers, students, Extension professionals, and other researchers interested in developing pest risk information products. The list includes entomologists and plant pathologists with practical experience in collecting field data and interpretation of pest forecasts. It includes individuals with experience in pest forecasting system design but who do not necessarily have programming skills. The goal of the workshop is to lay the foundation for the pest risk modeling community of practice (Goal 2, Isard; Goal 1, Esker). The group will discuss its mission, goals, objectives and future activities and these ideas will be further developed after the workshop into a document describing the pest risk modeling community of practice. Additional members will be actively recruited at the Tenth International IPM symposium to be held in Denver, Colorado in March 2021.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? During year 3, the field crops epidemiology program continued to work on models focusing on understanding the impact of soybean production practices on yield (Goal 1, Esker). In particular, we commenced with discussions related to using the information learned during prior years research as the framework to link with the Integrated Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education Cooperative Agricultural Project (iPiPE CAP), specifically focused on the concept of "community modeling" (Goal 2, Isard). Working with Scott Isard and Joe Russo, we are currently developing a new grant proposal for submission in early 2021 (Goal 1, Esker; Goal 2, Isard). Efforts on our USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) andCritical Agricultural Research and Extension (CARE)grant were limited as the timing of COVID-19 impacted finalizing the contracting of one of the two new Postdoctoral Scholars (Goals 1 and 2, Esker). We expect this delay to last into 2021, although the second Postdoctoral Scholar should be able to join the program during Fall 2020. Nonetheless, we developed a base concept note that was published at the American Phytopathological Society's 2020 Plant Health Online conference in August and we have another abstract accepted for presentation at the 2020 online meeting of the Tri-Societies (Agronomy, Crop Science, Soil Science societies), which will be held in November 2020. Additionally, our program was awarded a new USDA grant (USDA-NIFA-AFRI 2020-67013-31920) titled, "Can you spot it? Improving management recommendations in wheat using the three "E's": epidemiology, extension, and education" (Goals 1-2, Esker). This project has ties with the USDA-funded corn project, as well as the efforts related to the "community modeling" project with the iPiPE CAP (Goal 2, Isard). Given that Penn State Extension was classified as Mission Critical early on during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were successful in establishing our Pennsylvania Soybean On-Farm Network similar to prior years (Goal 1, Esker). We also were able to successfully move forward on laboratory work after a several month delay, which actually set us up well for working with new samples more efficiently once they are received at the end of the growing season. We successfully completed several important manuscripts on modeling the impact of soybean diseases on soybean productivity, as well as modeling research for Fusarium head blight of wheat. Maíra Duffeck, a Visiting PhD Scholar from the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil, successfully finished her PhD thesis, which was defended in September 2020. We also successfully established monitoring locations across Pennsylvania as part of our soybean white mold project, with both students working on the project (Karen Luong and Tyler McFeaters) advancing well on their research in terms of presenting initial results of genotypic diversity assays at both the field scale, as well as the regional scale (Goal 1, Esker). Overall, during the past year we published sixmanuscripts, had twoin revision, and twoin review. Furthermore, we published 25 conference proceedings, abstracts, or extension articles (Goal 3, Esker). We reached 849 participants across 21 talks, and our number of followers on Twitter increased by 145. As part of our sustainability plan, the iPiPECAPIT platform was integrated into the University of Georgia's Early Detection & Distribution Mapping System (EDDMapS) Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system. The combined database contains more than 1.5 million observations on over 800 crop pest species allowing researchers, extension professionals and other stakeholders to build and validate models for forecasting and managing populations of agricultural pests (Goal 2, Isard). The University of Georgia's Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health (CISEH) has existed (under various names) for three decades (initiated in 1994). It continues today using a broad portfolio of funding sources. Their management of the iPiPE archive will provide sustainability of this component and its resulting benefits in virtual perpetuity. The iPiPE, the latest iteration of the PiPE projects, was refocused in the past year as Ag IO, the National Monitoring and Forecasting Service for Agriculturally Important Organisms, to include not only crop pests but organisms beneficial to agriculture as well (Goal 2, Isard). During the no-cost extension (NCE), we built an open-source cloud-based modeling platform for iPiPE/Ag IO. The platform is operational and currently being used by a small number of iPiPE participants. This new component of Ag IO will allow participants to create pest risk maps and send them via text or email to stakeholders. Researchers from around the country will be able to develop their own models and then run them in the Ag IO system with real-time and historical weather data. The linkage of the tool to the Ag IO pest database will support model validation. The potential benefits of the tool are to increase the reliability of pest models and to decrease the costs for researchers to build pest models.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Gorny, A.M., F.S. Hay, P. Esker, and S.J. Pethybridge. 2020. Spatial and spatiotemporal analysis of Meloidogyne hapla and Pratylenchus spp. populations in commercial potato fields in New York. Nematology (https://doi.org/10.1163/15685411-bja10034).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Mueller, D., Wise, K., Sisson, A., and 34 other authors including P. Esker. 2020. Corn yield loss estimates due to diseases in the United States and Ontario, Canada, from 2016 to 2019. Plant Health Progress https://doi.org/10.1094/PHP-05-20-0038-RS.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Hitaj, C., D.J. Smith, A. Code, S. Wechsler, P.D. Esker, and M.R. Douglas. 2020. Sowing uncertainty: What we do and dont know about the planting of pesticide-treated seed. BioScience 70:390-403.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Duffeck, M., A.Y. Bandara, D.K. Weerasooriya, T.S. McFeaters, A.A. Collins, E.M. Del Ponte, and P.D. Esker. 2019. Comparative aggressiveness of Fusarium graminearum isolates causing Fusarium head blight in Pennsylvania. In S. Canty, A. Hoffstetter, B. Wiermer, and R. Dill-Mackey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2019 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum. East Lansing, MI/Lexington, KY: U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Duffeck, M., T.S. McFeaters, A.Y. Bandara, D.K. Weerasooriya, E.M. Del Ponte, and P.D. Esker. 2019. Sensitivity of Fusarium graminearum isolates causing wheat scab in Pennsylvania to triazole fungicides. In S. Canty, A. Hoffstetter, B. Wiermer, and R. Dill-Mackey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2019 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum. East Lansing, MI/Lexington, KY: U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Paul, P. A., S.J. Ng, and 25 other co-authors. 2019. Fusarium head blight management coordinated project: Integrated management trials 2018-2019. In S. Canty, A. Hoffstetter, B. Wiermer, and R. Dill-Mackey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2019 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum. East Lansing, MI/Lexington, KY: U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Paul, P. A., S.J. Ng, and 25 other co-authors. 2019. Fusarium head blight management coordinated project: Uniform fungicide trials 2018-2019. In S. Canty, A. Hoffstetter, B. Wiermer, and R. Dill-Mackey (Eds.), Proceedings of the 2019 National Fusarium Head Blight Forum. East Lansing, MI/Lexington, KY: U.S. Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Murillo-Williams, A., A.A. Collins, and P. Esker. 2020. Building an educational program for soybean cyst nematode in Pennsylvania. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Paukett, M., D.K. Weerasooriya, A.Y. Bandara, A.A. Collins, and P. Esker. 2020. Distribution and characterization of Pythium spp. in Pennsylvania soybean fields facing unique microclimate and soil conditions. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Rodrigues Duffeck, M., A.Y. Bandara, D.K. Weerasooriya, and P. Esker. 2020. Genetic population structure and trichothecene genotype composition of Fusarium graminearum populations causing Fusarium head blight in Pennsylvania. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Weerasooriya, D.K., A.Y. Bandara, M. Rodrigues Duffeck, A. Murillo-Williams, A.A. Collins, and P. Esker. 2020. Impact of cropping history on seedling diseases causing fungal and phytopathogenic nematode counts in soil. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Bandara, A.Y., D.K. Weerasooriya, R. Trexler, T. Bell, and P. Esker. 2020. Influence of cultural practices and soybean maturity group on soil and root microbial community composition I: The fungal perspective. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Luong, K., T. McFeaters, S.J. Pethybridge, and P. Esker. 2020. Understanding the genotypic diversity of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum in Pennsylvania and New York. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Weerasooriya, D.K., A.Y. Bandara, M. Rodrigues Duffeck, S.R. May, and P. Esker. 2020. Understanding the morphological and genetic diversity of soilborne Fusarium species in Pennsylvania. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: McFeaters, T., K. Luong, A.A. Collins, A. Murillo-Williams, and P. Esker. 2020. Understanding white mold in Pennsylvania soybeans: Spatial distribution of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum at the field scale. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Bandara, A.Y., D.K. Weerasooriya, R. Trexler, T. Bell, and P. Esker. 2020. Influence of cultural practices and soybean maturity group on soil and root microbial community composition II: The bacterial perspective. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Cucak, M., F. Dalla Lana, P.S. Ojiambo, E.D. De Wolf, D.A. Shah, P.A. Paul, and P. Esker. 2020. Into the new era of decision support in crop protection: Multifaceted disease management advisors based on machine learning and open science. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Bandara, A.Y., D.K. Weerasooriya, M. Rodrigues Duffeck, R. Trexler, R. Poudel, T. Bell, and P. Esker. 2020. Soil and soybean roots from high and low yielding field sites are characterized by distinct co-association microbiome networks. 2020 APS Annual Meeting Online.


Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:In Year 2 of the field crops epidemiology program, we engaged 1,070 agricultural producers, industry representative, scientists, students, and extension professionals on issues related to different risk factors and how they influence crop productivity and best management tactics, as well as statistical modeling methods applied to the agricultural sciences. We reached these stakeholders in 24 different programs across all four primary scales (local, regional, national, and international). We further reached another approximately 520 researchers and industry representatives via Twitter providing up-to-date information about different risk factors impacting field crops production during the growing season. Our extension efforts focused heavily on the response to the challenging 2018 growing season and how those issues would translate to production practices and needs in 2019. We continued to integrate our expanding efforts via the soybean on-farm network to connect with stakeholders about risk modeling needs that integrate on-the-ground data collection and analysis. Furthermore, we contributed 12 extension articles and conference abstracts related to the project. Extension articles were developed as part of the PSU Extension Agronomy Team for Field Crop News. This newsletter can be shared with well over 8,000 recipients, although we recognize that our specific target audience is smaller and more specialized. During the fifth years of the iPiPE CAP, we engaged 11 Extension professionals located across the nation to coordinate Crop-Pest Programs (CPPs) and encourage stakeholders in specific crops/production regions to participate in the iPiPE. The crops and states that hosted the CPPs are listed here: Apple (Massachusetts); Cotton (Tennessee); Grape (Connecticut); Potato (Florida); Potato and Tomato (North Carolina); Small Fruit and Grape (New Jersey); Sorghum (Texas); Sunflower (North Dakota); Tomato and Pepper (Florida); Urban Agriculture (New Mexico); and Vegetables (Massachusetts). The audiences that were informed of the iPiPE mission, goals, and outputs for stakeholders included Extension professionals, crop consultants, and growers. Changes/Problems:The iPiPE CAP is scheduled to terminate in February 2020. Hopefully USDA NIFA will accept our request for a 1-year no-cost extension. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Best management packages and quantitative data tools related to field crop production and statistical analyses of agriculture led by Esker were presented in 24 different programs, reaching 1,070 participants. Additionally, we trained three undergraduate students in field and laboratory research. Two new graduate students were recruited to the program and we recently had two Postdoctoral Scholar positions accepted that will focus on decision support platforms and their application to improve field crop disease management. During the past year, the iPiPE undergraduate student intern program provided young agricultural stakeholders from around the country (15 institutions) with extensive hands-on training in pest diagnostics and field collection protocols. The iPiPE undergraduate student intern program has now provided 99 young agricultural stakeholders from around the country (30 institutions) with extensive hands-on training in pest diagnostics and field collection protocols. On-line and conference call interactions have exposed these students to the value of sharing pest observations, use of derivative products in management decision-making and key concepts associated with food security. The capstone experience of the iPiPE internship program occurs at the annual meeting when students present posters on their efforts to engage stakeholders. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A combination of hands-on training sessions, field days, Twitter, and Penn State Extension's Field Crop News were used to provided stakeholders with relevant information about best management packages and risk associated with different pests and diseases during the current reporting period. From 24 extension and educational activities, we actively engaged over 1,000 participants. Our Twitter profile increased during Year 2 of the project and we now reach approximately 520 researchers and industry representatives where we disseminate information about disease risk and other production issues, as well as opportunities to participate in extension activities. The Esker Lab contributed seven extension articles tied with this project through PSU Extension's Field Crop News, as well as published five abstracts directly tied to this project in professional meetings and five journal articles that were either published or are currently in review. For the iPiPE CAP, a combination of social media, internet, and traditional means of communication were employed to engage stakeholders in 2019. We publish an iPiPE Newsletter featuring activities of and interns working in some of our Crop-Pest Programs. Monthly additions have been published and distributed via the internet. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Given the success in Year 2 for the Epidemiology Laboratory and Field Crops Extension Plant Pathology to secure funds for our disease support platform and also to continue our efforts in understanding and modeling the value chain for specialty field crops like malting barley, our plan as we move into Year 3 are focused on the improved development of deep learning and modeling approaches for large scale agricultural data that will enable us to better understand the factors that drives risk and development of different field crop diseases and the methods to best management these. We have approximately 5-10 manuscripts in the pipeline focused on this, as well as our soybean on-farm network efforts and we recognize the importance of sharing these with the broader community. As part of our sustainability plan for 2019-2020, the iPiPE IT platform is being integrated into the University of Georgia's EDDMapS IPM system. The combined database will contain more than 1.5 million observations on over 800 crop pest species allowing researchers, extension professionals and other stakeholders to build and validate models for forecasting and managing populations of agricultural. Their management of the iPIPE archive by EDDMaps will provide sustainability of this component and its resulting benefits in virtual perpetuity. In 2017, ZedX Inc, the provider of iPiPE IT services, was purchased by BASF. This was an unanticipated but fortuitous circumstance for the iPiPE. The subcontract to ZedX was shifted to BASF with Dr. Joe Russo, an iPiPE CAP PI and former president of ZedX, maintaining leadership of the iPiPE IT component as a BASF employee. Over the subsequent two years, BASF matched iPiPE's grant funds in providing programming support for the platform and paid for the transfer of the iPiPE platform into the Amazon cloud. In Spring 2019, BASF asked Penn State University to transfer the full IT subcontract for Year 5 ($250,000) to TechLords, an independent IT company for which Dr. Russo is president. TechLords is developing an open-source cloud-based modeling platform as the primary component of its Year 5 iPiPE work plan. This new component of the iPiPE system will allow participants to create pest risk maps and send them via text or email to stakeholders. Researchers from around the country will be able to develop their own models and then run them in the iPiPE system with real-time and historical weather data. The linkage of the tool to the iPiPE pest database will support model validation. The potential benefits of the tool are to increase the reliability of pest models and to decrease the costs for researchers to build pest models.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In Year 2 of the field crops epidemiology program, we continued on several core projects, including the analysis of a large-scale survey of soybean producers in the Midwestern US regarding how their production practices affects yield (Objective 1). In this project, we use machine learning to look for response patterns related to foliar fungicide use. We were successful in developing the global model from which we are now scaling this model down to examine the relative contribution of foliar fungicides in different technology environmental domains. We had to develop some novel tools and functions in order to extract model results in order to develop the visual methodology to summarize these results and we are in the process of developing four papers that focus on the influence of management tactics, environmental and plant physiology, as well as the challenges related to using machine learning for agricultural datasets. Tied to our use of machine learning for understanding patterns related to crop disease management, during the past year we were awarded a new USDA-NIFA-CARE grant that started in May 2019 focused on the development of a decision support platform using corn as the model system (Objectives 1 and 2). The goal with this project is to understand of how different agricultural inputs drive disease risk and how in near real-time, we can examine different risk patterns across the entire Corn Belt based on farmer input of production practices. Two Postdoctoral Scholar positions recently accepted positions to start in 2020 and this project ties closely with the iPiPE CAP as part of their transition plan to the University of Georgia's EDDMapS IPM system. We also submitted a grant proposal to USDA-NIFA-AFRI focused on building a novel approach for epidemiological training that is cross-institutional, with specific research emphasis on using deep learning and open source tools to improve wheat disease management across different market classes. Additionally, the expansion of the Pennsylvania Soybean On-Farm Network has been successful as we work in 21 counties in the state on over 50 different trials and activities with the Penn State Extension Field and Forage Crops Team (Objectives 1 and 3). More specifically, the Esker Lab is in year 2 of looking at the impact of early-season (soilborne) diseases in Pennsylvania, as well as methods for data collection, processing, and analysis on yield-limiting risk factors. Linked to this project is a national project focused on understand the impact of multiple soybean pests at different scales (Objective 1). During the past year, these efforts have culminated in seven abstracts presented at the American Phytopathological Society's Annual Meeting, as well as the preparation of four manuscripts that are in different stages of review and revision. Overall our projects reached over 1,000 participants across the different programs and we increased the number of Twitter followers by approximately 180 (Objectives 3 and 4). The iPiPE CAP continued to build momentum in Year 5 towards its goal to serve food security and IPM by creating a national infrastructure of private and public professionals who routinely monitor pest incidence and severity then translate this knowledge to a shared platform enabling rapid dissemination of mitigation measures to limit crop loss (Objectives 2, 3, and 4). Sustaining the iPiPE program and its benefits to stakeholders was the focus of the work this year. We now have 100,000s of pest observations in the iPiPE system including historical observations from the soybean rust PIPE, ipmPIPE, and sister IT platforms with which we share data. iPiPE PIs have worked over the past year with professional consulting firms to develop both Marketing and Business Plans for sustaining the iPiPE beyond the grant period. During our market research efforts in 2018-2019, growers, consultants, Extension specialist, Ag retailers, and crop protection company representatives were interviewed for 30-60 minutes. The general questions we sought to answer with an iPiPE Marketing Plan were: what are the best marketing approaches for public pest monitoring programs? What are the costs? What are alternative revenue models to fund them? More fundamentally, what role does sharing of pest observations and forecasting have in growers' pest management decisions, and how do the stakeholders who influence those decisions use public pest monitoring and forecasting to guide them? These questions are of interest well beyond the current CAP. Six interview guides were developed for and delivered to six groups of stakeholders. Interviews were conducted with 14 CPPCs, 140 growers of 8 commodities, crops or groups of crops, 20 extension specialists, 15 suppliers of crop protection products, 20 ag retailers, and 20 independent crop consultants. These data were summarized, and the resulting recommendations presented to the iPiPE Advisory Board prior to the start of Year 5. Highlights of the iPiPE Marketing Plan, and outputs and outcomes of the Crop-Pest Programs for each year are described and quantified on the iPiPE Education and Outreach website (http://ed.ipipe.org/cpp-outputs-and-outcomes). The results of the recently completed iPiPE marketing study are providing a framework for our current business planning efforts. The purpose of the iPiPE Business Plan is to (i) provide a framework for capturing team knowledge and aligning priorities to help win new funding and new sources of revenue; (ii) define the long-term opportunity for a national crop pest monitoring system; (iii) provide business details for that opportunity (markets, competition, business models, potential partners, phased approaches); and (iv) define risks and countermeasures. One goal was to create a "living document", meaning that it will continue to evolve as opportunities develop related to grants and partnerships.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bandara, A., Weerasooriya, D., Conley, S., Bradley, C., Allen, T., and Esker, P. Modeling the relationship between estimated foliar fungicide use and soybean yield losses due to foliar diseases in the United States. PLOS ONE (In review).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bandara, A., Weerasooriya, D., Bradley, C., Allen, T., and Esker, P. Dissecting the economic impact of soybean diseases in the United States over two decades. PLOS ONE (In review).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Under Review Year Published: 2019 Citation: Duffeck, M., Alves, K., Machado, F., Esker, P., and Del Ponte, E. (XXXX). Modeling yield losses and fungicide profitability for managing Fusarium head blight in Brazilian spring wheat. Phytopathology (in review with tentative accept).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Mourtzinis, S., Krupke, C.H., Esker, P.D., Varenhost, A., and others. (2019). Neonicotonioid seed treatments of soybean provide negligible benefits to US farms. Science Reports 9, Article number: 11207.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Savary, S., Willocquet, L., Pethybridge, S. J., Esker, P., McRoberts, N., & Nelson, A. (2019). The global burden of pathogens and pests on major food crops. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 3, 430-439.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bandara, A., Esker, P., & others. (2019). Association between soil and root microbiomes and within-farm-spatial-variation of soybean yields I: The bacterial perspective. http://apsnet.confex.com/apsnet/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/14224.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bandara, A., Esker, P., & others. (2019). Association between soil and root microbiomes and within-farm-spatial-variation of soybean yields: II. The fungal perspective. http://apsnet.confex.com/apsnet/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/14215.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bandara, A., Esker, P., & others. (2019). Association of selected biological and chemical properties of soil with within-farm-spatial-variation of soybean yields in Pennsylvania. http://apsnet.confex.com/apsnet/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/14310.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Bandara, A., Esker, P., & others. (2019). Effect of Apron Maxx seed treatment on soybean seedling diseases, seedling vigor, and yields in Pennsylvania. http://apsnet.confex.com/apsnet/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/14294.
  • Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Wilt, B., Esker, P., & others. (2019). Impact of metalaxyl, ethaboxam, and mefenoxam on in-vitro growth rate of Pythium isolates from Pennsylvania. http://apsnet.confex.com/apsnet/2019/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/14281.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Collins, A. A., & Esker, P. (2019). Barley heads up. Field Crop News - Penn State Extension. http://extension.psu.edu/barley-heads-up.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Murillo-Williams, A., Collins, A. A., & Esker, P. (2019). Check your feed supply! Field Crop News - Penn State Extension. http://extension.psu.edu/check-your-feed-supply.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Esker, P., & Collins, A. A. (2019). Factors to consider for understanding white mold risk in soybean. http://extension.psu.edu/factors-to-consider-for-understanding-white-mold-risk-in-soybean.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Collins, A. A., & Esker, P. (2019). Fusarium head scab update. Field Crop News - Penn State Extension. http://extension.psu.edu/fusarium-head-scab-update.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Esker, P., Weerasooriya, D., & Bandara, A. (2019). Improving knowledge of soilborne pathogens in PA soybean production systems. Field Crop News - Penn State Extension. http://extension.psu.edu/improving-knowledge-of-soilborne-pathogens-in-pa-soybean-production-systems.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Collins, A. A., Esker, P., & Murillo-Williams, A. (2019). Scouting and quantifying Fusarium head blight in small grains. Field Crop News - Penn State Extension. http://extension.psu.edu/scouting-and-quantifying-fusarium-head-blight-in-small-grains.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Collins, A. A., Esker, P., & Murillo-Williams, A. (2018). Avoiding mycotoxins in grain corn and silage. Field Crop News - Penn State Extension. http://extension.psu.edu/avoiding-mycotoxins-in-grain-corn-and-silage.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: iPiPE 2018 Market Research. Beck AG. https://sites.google.com/site/ipipeed/project-info/ipipe-market-research
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2019 Citation: Business Plan: National Monitoring and Forecasting Service for Agricultural Pests and Beneficial Organism IPM NEXT


Progress 08/07/18 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:In Year 1 of the field crops epidemiology program, we engaged 500 agricultural producers, industry representative, and extension professionals on issues related to different risk factors and how they influence crop productivity and best management tactics. We reached these stakeholders in eight different extension and industry program. We further reached another approximately 340 researchers and industry representatives via Twitter providing up-to-date information about different risk factors impacting field crops production during the growing season. Our program focused on several different risk and pest factors, including hybrid and variety selection, disease identification and quantification, and how our soybean on-farm network allows us to connect the risk modeling needs with an on-the-ground data collection and analysis. Lastly, given some of the challenges faces with the 2018 growing season in Pennsylvania, we produced in collaboration with other extension professionals 12 Field Crop News articles for Penn State University Extension. Penn State Extension maintains a master list of approximately well-over 6-7,000 recipients, although our specific target is smaller and more specialized. In Year 4 of the iPiPE CAP, we engaged sixteen Extension professionals located across the nation to coordinate Crop-Pest Programs and encourage stakeholders in specific crops/production regions to participate in the iPiPE.The audiences that were informed of the iPiPE mission, goals, and outputs for stakeholders in 2018 included Extension professionals, crop consultants, and growers of: (i) vegetables in Utah; (ii) wheat in Montana; (iii) sorghum in Texas; (iv) tree fruits in West Virginia; (v) citrus, pepper and tomato and peanut in Florida; (vi) sunflowers in North Dakota; (vii) cotton in Tennessee; (viii) peanuts in Virginia; (ix) tree fruits and vegetables in Massachusetts; (x) urban farmers in New Mexico (xi) soybeans in Iowa; (xii) stone fruits in Oregon; (xiii) small fruits in New Jersey; (xiv) grapes in Connecticut; and (XV) cole crops in MichiganIn 2018, iPiPE partnered with (i) the Illinois Area Wide Pest Monitoring program that provides management information for corn and soybean growers throughout the state and (ii) the North Central Pollinator Program that monitored fields for beneficial insects.Social media, internet, and traditional means of communication were employed to engage stakeholders. Twenty-two undergraduate student summer interns from these states were involved in iPiPE activities learning about food security and IPM.Finally, we reached out to Extension professionals and researchers through presentations on iPiPE at national meetings and IPM Center webinars explaining the iPiPE concept and recruiting Crop-Pest Program Coordinators for the CAP. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Objective 3. Conduct training of growers, consultants and other stakeholders regarding the importance of best management packages, as well as the risks associated with their use, to reduce the impact of diseases on agricultural crops.Best management packages and quantitative data tools were presented to stakeholders on corn, soybean, and wheat projects that were led by Esker in eight field-day and fall programs (with 500 participants). Objective 4.Provide undergraduate students with professional opportunities working with Extension professionals, crop consultants and growers.Dr. Esker and his research program, in combination with Penn State Extension provided opportunities for seven undergraduate students to work on the Pennsylvania Soybean On-Farm Network. Students were trained on sample collection, disease and pest assessment, as well as being provided the opportunity to work directly with the entire team and grower cooperators. The success of program was seen with the contracting of one of the students into a Research Support role with the epidemiology laboratory at Penn State after graduation and the development of an independent student research project during Fall 2018 for another participant. Dr. Isard and his research assistant, Annalisa Ariatti, ran the iPiPE summer undergraduate internship program. In 2018, 28 undergraduates participated in the program from 13 institutions including Florida State University, Michigan State University, New Mexico State University, North Carolina State University, Penn State University, Rutgers University, University of Connecticut, University of Florida, University of Kentucky, University of Massachusetts, University of New Mexico, University of Tennessee, and Virginia Tech University. Five graduate students also participated in the summer internship program. Similar numbers of interns participated in the iPiPE program in 2015-2017. iPiPE undergraduate student interns: (i) took an entry survey of their expectation for the internship; (ii) became familiar with the functionality of the iPiPE; (iii) cataloged Extension literature on target pests; (iv) received training in pest diagnostics; (v) collected pest observations in the field and entered them into iPiPE; (vi) interacted with Extension professionals and stakeholders at grower meetings and in one-on-one conversations during field collection trips; (vii) receive training in IPM and food security concepts; (viii) interacted with each other using social media; (ix) will gain professional experience when they present posters on their experiences at the February iPiPE national meeting; and (x) 17 students completed an exit survey at the end of their internship (some are continuing).Student interns reported weekly on their experiences with stakeholders on the iPiPE blog and discussed IPM and food security issues on weekly calls with each other and the iPiPE education team. Each students received hands-on mentoring from the Extension professional coordinating an iPiPE Crop-Pest Program. The following student knowledge outcomes were specified by Crop-Pest Program Coordinators in their annual reports. Students: (i) Increased their knowledge of pest diagnostics; (ii) Increased their knowledge of crop pest dynamics; (iii) Increased their knowledge of scouting protocols and techniques; (iv) Increase their knowledge of IPM and food security; (v) Increased their knowledge of IT (apps) and other technologies (PCR) in agriculture through hand-on experiences; (vi) Increased their knowledge of Extension resources on target pests in the Crop-Pest Program; and (vii) Increased their knowledge of Crop-Pest Program Extension resources available to stakeholders for pest management decision making. Seventeen of the students that ended their internship in September 2018 completed both the pre and post internship surveys, hereafter call entry and exit surveys. With respect to the amount of learning and skill improvement that the interns expected, and the amount they realized, results were strikingly similar to the results from the 2015-2018 surveys of iPiPE Interns. After one year of learning and training, students reassessed their pre-internship knowledge and skills downward, and achieved more progress than they had expected. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A combination of field days, Twitter, and Penn State Extension's Field Crop News were used to provided stakeholders with relevant information about best management packages and risk associated with different pests and diseases during the current reporting period. From eight field days, we engaged 500 agricultural producers, industry representative, and extension professionals on topics ranging from different production risk factors and how they influence crop productivity to best management tactics and strategic decision-making. We further reached another approximately 340 researchers and industry representatives via Twitter providing up-to-date information about different risk factors impacting field crops production during the growing season. Lastly, 12 extension articles and news releases were prepared and published on Penn State Extension's Field Crop News during the growing season. iPiPE Crop-Pest Program Coordinators reported that information about the iPiPE was presented at a total of 130 meetings/conference calls with roughly 3700 stakeholders in attendance during 2018.The iPiPE concept and participation in the project was also discussed with growers and crop consultants through approximately 198 one-on-one conversations as well.Twitter and blogs were used to communicate with and gather pest observations from stakeholders (69 tweets).Maps depicting pest distributions accompanied by commentary from Extension professionals were disseminated to growers/crop consultants in a number of the Crop-Pest Programs.Twenty one articles were printed in Extension publications and other agricultural media targeting growers, crop consultants and other stakeholders described the iPiPE concept.The iPiPE was also presented to Extension professionals in the Northeastern IPM Center's The IPM Toolbox Webinar Series and the annual meeting of the Western Great Lakes Ag Retailors. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?For the Epidemiology Laboratory and Field Crops Extension Plant Pathology, our plans entering year two of the project are focused on expanding our soybean on-farm network both locally, as well as regionally. Furthermore, we are continuing efforts to develop deep learning and modeling approaches for large scale agricultural data that will enable us to better understand the factors that drives risk and development of different field crop diseases and the methods to best management these. Recently, we submitted a USDA proposal focused on these efforts for corn disease risk assessment and the optimization of management options based on grower-inputted information. We have also recently submitted proposals focused on improving the education and research-extension needs for the production of specialty crops like malting barley. Lastly, we are focused on building new modeling approaches focused on the value chain of agricultural production and how this impacts rural community development, sustainability, and social acceptance. The iPiPE will enter its 5thand final USDA NIFA funding year in 2019.We will continue to (i) engage extension professionals to encourage and facilitate stakeholders who collect data to submit observations to the iPiPE; (ii) recruit and train undergraduate student interns proving them with hands-on extension and diagnostic experiences; (iii) develop new pest risk assessment models and distribute resulting products related tonew, foreign, and emerging pests (iv) develop new and improved iPiPE IT tools; (v) transfer observations to the national pest observation repository at the University of Georgia; and (vi) continue to measure the impact of the iPiPE CAP. Perhaps the biggest challenge for 2019 will be moving the iPiPE IT platform to the cloud computing environment.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objective 1: Identify and quantify the importance of different risk factors that can influence the development of best management packages based on grower production practices.?Esker is PD on a soybean commodity group funded project that is analyzing a large-scale survey of soybean producers in the Midwestern US regarding how their production practices affects yield. During the current project period, we spent approximately 3-4 months of data quality control, which improved our ability to move forward with formal analyses based on a combination of exploratory data methods, as well as machine learning technologies like network analysis. Our goal in this project is look for patterns in response profiles that can explain specific responses to different management tactics like foliar fungicides, as one example. We recently added to the project a post-doctoral researcher based on the University of Wisconsin who is taking an approach to look at developing production scenarios (situations) that also drive this response profile. Objective 2:Increase near-real time sharing of observation of pests and beneficial organisms in agriculture.Through the PA Soybean On-Farm Network (approximately 20 counties and just over 50 farms) and activities with PSU Extension, Esker led large-scale efforts to establish a series of trials focused on the impact of early-season (soilborne) diseases in Pennsylvania, as well as methods for data collection, processing, and analysis on yield-limiting risk factors. While efforts continue focused on laboratory assays for pathogen identification and pathogenicity, we were able to integrate near, real-time results in discussions at each of the eight extension field days and meetings that were highlighted in the "Target Audience" section. Isard is the PD on the Integrated Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education (iPiPE) Collaborative Agricultural Program (CAP) USDA NIFA grant. In 2018, a total of 261,094 observations of insect pests and diseases in agricultural fields across the country were share by participants of the iPiPE. Ninety-four observers entered approximately 5000 field observations of insect pests and diseases directly into the system from 383 locations around the country. Extension professions associated with Illinois Area Wide Monitoring program also contributed 2121 observations of insect pests of field crops to the iPiPE. Another 2121 field observations of pollinator insects were entered directly into the iPiPE by collaborators participating in the Northcentral region pollinator monitoring program. iPiPE also collaborates with a variety of "sister" IT platforms around the country that collect observations of insects and diseases and these sister programs shared over 250,000 observations to the iPiPE in 2018. These observations were used to run pest risk assessment models and the resulting products (maps) were distributed on a daily basis to Extension professionals and other iPiPE participants on both iPiPE Participant and Extension websites. Objective 3. Conduct training of growers, consultants and other stakeholders regarding the importance of best management packages, as well as the risks associated with their use, to reduce the impact of diseases on agricultural crops.Extension professionals and researchers were provided new information on iPiPE and current efforts via presentations the system and tools at national meetings and IPM Center webinars explaining the iPiPE concept and recruiting Crop-Pest Program Coordinators for the CAP. Best management packages and quantitative data tools were presented to stakeholders on corn, soybean, and wheat projects that Esker led in eight programs (with 500 participants) and through 12 extension articles for Penn State Extension's Field Crop News. Objective 4. Provide undergraduate students with professional opportunities working with Extension professionals, crop consultants and growers.Seven undergraduate students participated in the Pennsylvania Soybean On-Farm Network, working closely with campus-based researchers and extension educators around the state. In all cases, the students had the opportunity to work directly with soybean growers as the research in all cases were conducted on-farm. Furthermore, these efforts have directly led to one of the summer participants being hired in Research Support for the epidemiology program and for another student who is conducting independent student research during Fall 2018 related to pathogen identification for samples that were collected during the on-farm sampling.

Publications

  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Esker, P.D., D. Shah, C. Bradley, S. Conley, P. Paul, and A. Robertson. 2018. Perceptions of Midwestern crop advisors and growers on foliar fungicide adoption and use in maize. Phytopathology 108:1078-1088. (Editors Pick for September).
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Gent, D.H., P. Esker, and A. Kriss. 2018. Statistical power in plant pathology research. Phytopathology 108:15-22.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Tinsley, N.A., J.L. Spencer, R.E. Estes, K.A. Estes, A.L. Kaluf, S.A. Isard, E. Levine and M.E. Gray. 2018 Multi-year surveys reveal significant decline in western corn rootworm densities in Illinois soybean fields. American Entomologist 64:112-119.
  • Type: Journal Articles Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Willbur, J.F., M. L. Fall, C. Bloomingdale, A.M. Byrne, S.A. Chapman, S.A. Isard, R.D. Magarey, M.M. McCaghey, B.D. Mueller, J.M. Russo, J. Schlegel, M.I. Chilvers, D.S. Mueller, M.Kabbage, and D.L. Smith. 2017 Weather-based models for assessing the risk of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum apothecial presence in soybean (Glycine max) fields. Plant Disease DOI: 10.1094/PDIS-04-17-0504-RE.
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Collins, A., and P. Esker. 2018. When to pull the trigger on wheat fungicide. https://extension.psu.edu/when-to-pull-the-trigger-on-wheat-fungicide
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Collins, A., and P. Esker. 2018. Fusarium head blight update for the week of May 14, 2018. https://extension.psu.edu/fusarium-head-blight-update
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Collins, A., and P. Esker. 2018. What to do if you have scab? https://extension.psu.edu/what-to-do-if-you-have-scab
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Collins, A., P. Esker, and A. Murillo-Williams. 2018. A soggy situation for plant disease. https://extension.psu.edu/a-soggy-situation-for-plant-disease
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Esker, P., and A. Collins. 2018. White mold considerations for 2018. https://extension.psu.edu/white-mold-considerations-in-2018
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Murillo-Williams, A., A. Collins, and P. Esker. 2018. Wheat and barley diseases: What is in your seed? https://extension.psu.edu/wheat-and-barley-diseases-what-is-in-your-seed
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Murillo-Williams, A., A. Collins, and P. Esker. 2018. Corn ear rots and mycotoxins. https://extension.psu.edu/corn-ear-rots-and-mycotoxins
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Collins, A., and P. Esker. 2018. Early-season fungicide considerations. https://extension.psu.edu/early-season-corn-fungicide-considerations
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Esker, P., A. Collins, and A. Murillo-Williams. 2018. Soybean stem diseases: What are the different symptoms and signs? https://extension.psu.edu/soybean-stem-diseases-what-are-the-different-symptoms-and-signs
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Murillo-Williams, A., A. Collins, and P. Esker. 2018. Plant parasitic nematodes explained. https://extension.psu.edu/plant-parasitic-nematodes-explained
  • Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2018 Citation: Collins, A., P. Esker, and A. Murillo-Williams. 2018. Avoiding mycotoxins in grain corn and silage. https://extension.psu.edu/avoiding-mycotoxins-in-grain-corn-and-silage
  • Type: Other Status: Other Year Published: 2018 Citation: Esker, P., and A. Collins. 2018. Scouting for white mold in soybean. https://extension.psu.edu/scouting-for-white-mold-in-soybean