Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs Target Audience:Homeowners, public and county Extension personnel, school IPM personnel. Changes/Problems:Objective 4. Demonstration project. Objective modification approved based on research findings: 1 mm is sufficient for a variety of perimeter pests to enter structures. Thus, a field demonstration project as currently described is unlikely to yield more actionable information. Modification: Research Objective 3: To measure resistance in field collected strains of cockroaches. Rationale: Research Objective 1 (Define the minimum interstitial space that will prevent perimeter pests from entering structures) has effectively answered the question: 1 mm is sufficient for a variety of perimeter pests to enter structures. Thus, a field demonstration project as currently described is unlikely to yield more actionable information. However, cockroaches continue to be a significant problem. Florida and the southeast have among the highest cockroach populations in the U.S. Cockroaches are public health pests. There are no recent surveys for insecticide resistance in cockroaches in the southeast. Products and management practices have changed. Wu and Appel (2017, J Econ Entomol 110: 1203-1209) found the highest level of resistance to permethrin in 6 field populations from North Carolina collected from 2011-2012. Recently, California colleagues measured resistance to currently registered baits in field populations of German cockroaches and found that there is multiple resistance across the commercially baits that they tested (Lee et al. 2022, J Econ Entomol 115:259-265). There is also evidence that consumer products significantly worsen the problem posed by resistance (DeVries et al. 2019, BMC Pub Health 19:96 ; Fardisi et al. 2019, Sci Rep 9:8292). These findings are clearly concerning. It is critically important that we measure insecticide resistance and report these results to the pest management industry and the public in the context of encouraging IPM practices. Predicted results from a new Research Objective 3 will directly support Extension Objective 2 (develop homeowner-friendly recommendations) with the added benefit of supporting the structural pest management industry. co-PI Graham retired from Auburn University in2021, but continues to support the project in an advisory capacity. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?See "Other Products"--Presentations are updated annually and delivered collaboratively with county faculty. Presentation planning allows for discussions/mentorship concerning current research. TAMU AgriLife:Offered a special training session to TX Master Naturalists about ways they can assist with survey distribution and demonstration projects. Interest was moderate but with pandemic restrictions the interest has dwindled. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Webinars, website (Pests in the Home), in-person programs. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?1. Present data Research Objective 3: To measure resistance in field collected strains of cockroaches. 2. Complete survey report. 3. Drafts of publications for reseach objectives on interstitial spaces that exclude common pests and evaluation of over-the-counter product efficacy. 4. Training: Continuein-service agent training and working with agents to author Extension resources (expanding Extension's capacity). 5. Dissemination of information to public via webinars and website updates.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective 1. Survey data led by TAMU being summarized (N=842). Objective 2. Develop homeowner friendly recommendations. eXtension website launched:https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/ . Articles are included in monthly Southern Region IPM Center Newsletter to promote website use. Objective 3. Build Extension's capacity. Website rebuild satisfies a much needed resource for agents. Agents areworking on Extension material to be posted at Pests in the Homes website and UF/IFAS EDIS system. Objective 4. Demonstration project. Objective modification approved based on research findings: 1 mm is sufficient for a variety of perimeter pests to enter structures. Thus, a field demonstration project as currently described is unlikely to yield more actionable information. Modification: Research Objective 3: To measure resistance in field collected strains of cockroaches. Rationale: Research Objective 1 (Define the minimum interstitial space that will prevent perimeter pests from entering structures) has effectively answered the question: 1 mm is sufficient for a variety of perimeter pests to enter structures. Thus, a field demonstration project as currently described is unlikely to yield more actionable information. However, cockroaches continue to be a significant problem. Florida and the southeast have among the highest cockroach populations in the U.S. Cockroaches are public health pests. There are no recent surveys for insecticide resistance in cockroaches in the southeast. Products and management practices have changed. Wu and Appel (2017, J Econ Entomol 110: 1203-1209) found the highest level of resistance to permethrin in 6 field populations from North Carolina collected from 2011-2012. Recently, California colleagues measured resistance to currently registered baits in field populations of German cockroaches and found that there is multiple resistance across the commercially baits that they tested (Lee et al. 2022, J Econ Entomol 115:259-265). There is also evidence that consumer products significantly worsen the problem posed by resistance (DeVries et al. 2019, BMC Pub Health 19:96 ; Fardisi et al. 2019, Sci Rep 9:8292). These findings are clearly concerning. It is critically important that we measure insecticide resistance and report these results to the pest management industry and the public in the context of encouraging IPM practices. Predicted results from a new Research Objective 3 will directly support Extension Objective 2 (develop homeowner-friendly recommendations) with the added benefit of supporting the structural pest management industry. Both research objectives were completed and publications are in progress.
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Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs Target Audience:Homeowners, public and county Extension personnel. Changes/Problems:COVID continues to present challenges to in-person training that directly impacts Extension Objective 3. TAMU and Auburn agent personnel and responsibilities have changed. Florida has been able to restart agent in-service training and training for non-traditional audiences in counties that were prepared for online learning and that already had a online following of clientele. Not all counties and clientele have online capability. The resurgence of COVID with new variants continues to be a challenge. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?As part of county faculty professional development and training in delivering content, we cooperatively delivered__programs with county faculty on IPM as it relates to Home Maintenance (2020: Sept 22, Oct 30, Nov 30 and 2021: Jan. 25, Mar. 29, Apr. 26, May 24, June 28, July 26, Aug. 30, 2021) to 225 people whose average pre-assessment practice of IPM were 75.1%. As a result of the webinars, intent to practice IPM post-assessment was 98.3% for an average intent to practice gain of 23.2%. Additional programs included Delusory Parasitosis (October 20, 2020, n=50), Ticks and the Diseases They Carry (Feb. 10, 2021, n=38), Mosquitoes (March 23, 2021 n=25), Termites (May 13, 2021, n=40), Rodents and Other Vermin (June 29, n=47), Bed Bugs (Sept 2020, July 20, 2021 n=63), Ant Wars (Aug 31, n=66). The average pre-assessment practice of IPM elements was 69%. After the webinar, intent to practice IPM was 88% for a 19% gain. Content knowledge pre-test average was 55.4%, post-test 75.9% for a knowledge gain of 20.5%. Every respondent in the Home Maintenance programs said that they would be more successful in managing pests in and around their homes as a result of the webinars. Questions for intent to practice IPM included: 1) I remove all food, water, and shelter from my house; 2) I clean to deal with pests in my home; 3) I currently seal and know how to prevent all pests from coming into my home; 4) I carefully read and follow labels on pest products used in my home; 5) I regularly check my home for pests. We also held an in-service training, "What's Biting Me" covering topics requested by county agents that they encounter from the public: bed bugs, mosquitoes, mites include those on plants, in food,on humans and companion animals, and delusory parasitosis. 30 county agents attended from more than 20 counties. Webinar format. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Through Pests in the Homes websitehttps://pestsinthehome.extension.org/ and through webinars listed above. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?TAMU is responsible for summarizing survey. We will continue to provide in-service training opportunities to county faculty, especially those not traditionally associated with structural pest management. Publish research results.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
Both research objectives were completed and publications are in progress. Objective 1. Survey led by TAMU is completed. Objective 2. Develop homeowner friendly recommendations. eXtension website rebuilt:https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/ .
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs Target Audience:Homeowners, public, and county Extension personnel. Changes/Problems:COVID-19 continued to hamper Extension efforts, including travel related to objective completion. We have pivoted in how content delivery is managed; however, staffing at the county level continues to be a challenge. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?TAMU programming: February 11, 2020: Most Common Household Pests -Titus County Master Gardeners, slide with survey and showed them how to access Residential IPM online course = 21 people April 23, 2020: What's Bugging You Webinar- Hosted by Lamar County Agent via WebEx = 32 people AU programming: July 17, 2020 - Webinar for South Carolina Master Gardener Group - Controlling Pest in and Around Homes July 22, 2020 - Zoom presentation for What's Bugging You Webinar Series - Controlling Pest in and Around Homes August 19, 2020 - Zoom presentation for Smart Yards Webinar Series - Cockroaches September 16, 2020 - Zoom presentation for Alabama Smart Yards - Mosquitos October 14, 2020 - Zoom presentation for Alabama Smart Yards - Fleas and Ticks November 4, 2020 - Alabama Smart Yards - Ants March 30, 2021- Master Gardener Monthly Update - Fire Ants: Its All in Timing April 1, 2021 - Alabama Master Gardener Course - Controlling Pests in and Around the Home How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Website for homeowners/public being built. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Complete website; build Extension's capacity to deliver homeowner IPM programming.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
Research objectives completed. Publications in progress. Extension objectives hampered by COVID-19 and variants.
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs Target Audience:Homeowners are the final target audience. Auburn University: To reach this audience we will conduct training for our Home Grounds Extension Agents that work with homeowner pest problems. Most of their work has been on exterior pests and this will provide information to them to assist homeowners with pest problems in the home also. Texas A&M: In Texas, educating county agents about the need for more education about pests in and around the home has been difficult. Finding the right person within the AgriLife Extension agency to help with disseminating this information has had its challenges but we finally have a path to success. University of Florida: Florida continues to work with counties agents who provide first-time home buyer programs and who are partnered with horticulture agents under the auspices of at 2017 EIP grant. Knowledge of the EIP effort to provide homeowner information has led to involvement with Master Gardeners and interest from other Extension programs that involve homeowner education. Changes/Problems: eXtension's decision to not support Community of Practice websites created an unexpected delay because we needed to rebuild the website from scratch. We reached out to the southern region IPM center for assistance and a private web designer who provided basic guidance. The former eXtension website was converted to Wordpress with no functionality. There is no budget to purchase the plug-ins that would make the Wordpress site more functional for the end user. We also did not budget for a webmaster. We invested a week of time with the southern region IPM center to do the basics of setting up pages, Google Analytics, SEO,and developing content. We chose the Guttenberg editor, but may change to a different one that provides more functionality. Without the website, there would be no place to home the link to the survey, articles that would survey as guidance for homeowners, and short videos proposed. In Texas there was some personnel changes within AgriLife Extension that required PI Janet Hurley to seek new contact for creating the homeowner survey within Qualtrics.Once that person was found, the survey development went quickly. At the same time, there were additional changes with the AgriLife communications department which slowed the progress to work with county agents.This has changed and steps are in place to move forward on demonstration and training of agents within the next fiscal year. Both AL and TX county agents continue to seek ways to integrate new content into their programming. Florida will have to submit a separate IRB for the survey. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?TX: This has been limited in our first year, but had conversation with Associate Director of Extension Communications, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service on July 8, 2019 to discuss getting county agents involved. AL: N/A FL: Florida provides continuous,year-roundopportunities for training and professional development through Pest Management University (https://pestmanagementuniversity.org/), a separate Extension program. Registration for county agents is waived. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A press release for the survey (Objective 1)wasdelivered by TAMU. Information on homeowner IPM is located here https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/and shared through social media: Twitter, @PMU_News, Facebook: @PMUNews, Linkedin, and invited pest control Facebook pages. Florida county agents presented results from related EIP grant at the annual Extension Professsional Association of Florida (https://extadmin.ifas.ufl.edu/epaf/epaf-conference/, Sanibel Harbor, FL, Aug 27, 2019) which generated additional interest for the homeowner IPM initiative and will result in traffic to the Pests in Homes website https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Marketing materialswill be developed so that County Agents can disseminate. Will also use social media links and other methods like bookmarks that will be handed out at the Texas State Fair and other events that county agents participate in. Continue to work on Pests in the Home website. We will continue to refine the content on this website so that anyone who takes the survey can go to this website for more information, as well as place for county agents to reference for basic information. Continue to work with AgriLife Communications and Leadership to engage County Agents in the project. In the process of developing materials to make it easier for TX county agents to use this material. Also working with another group that might have access to new homeowner classes. Continue to work with Alabama Home Grounds Leadership to engage County Agents in the project. In the process of developing materials to make it easier for our county agents to use this material. Analyze survey data and publish. Provide in-service training to agents in all states. Continue to deliver training to homeowner audiences Complete research objectives and begindemonstration project.
Impacts What was accomplished under these goals?
Extension Objective 1:Survey citizens about their current knowledge of IPM and pesticide use. Currently, there are no published reports that provide industry estimates of IPM adoption or pest control practices. The survey will help us understand the barriers to IPM adoption by homeowners and devise programming appropriately.The survey has been developed, approved by IRB (IRB2019-0680 ), and disseminated via press release: https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/seeking-individuals-to-participate-in-integrated-pest-management-survey/ Reviewed California survey's for questions and what could be used in 2019/2020 from the survey's written in the early 1990s and 2000s. Our team agreed on a series of questions. Worked with Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communications Department at Texas A&M University to find a Professor to assist with the online homeowner survey. Extension Objective 2. Develop homeowner-friendly recommendations that incorporate results from research objectives and use in direct-marketing to the general public. The eXtension website where we intended to post the homeowner-friendly recommendation required rebuilding. Two new publications were developed under the auspices of the related Crop Protection and Pest Management Extension Implementation Project, grant no. 2017-70006-27149/project accession no. 10139622 were posted to this site: Selecting a Pest Control Company: https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/resources/selecting-a-pest-control-company/ Termite Prevention and Control: https://pestsinthehome.extension.org/common-pests/termites/homeowners-guide-to-termites-prevention-and-control/ Extension Objective 3. Build Extension's capacity by engaging non-traditional change agents who will then reach a more diversified audience. Florida's agents continue to deliver IPM training and advance evaluation tools under the related relatedEIP grant (Crop Protection and Pest Management Extension Implementation Project, grant no. 2017-70006-27149) and these advances are shared with AL and TX for use with their agents. Extension Objective 4. Demonstration project to complement laboratory research objective on exclusion. N/A
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