Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:We have three different populations/groups that we intended to recruit to complete this project: academic team (students, post docs, etc.), advisory board members and our collaborating farmers. This yearour Academic team went through some transitions. One of the faculty from UNH left the university and moved to a new position at USDA-ARS. Dr. Anna Wallingford remains engaged in the project and has joined our advisory panel. One of the Ph.D. graduate students on the University of Illinois team left the program and was replaced by a new M.S. student. We have continued to engage with our Advisory Panel which includes three industry representatives (one from a biocontrol company, one from a biopesticide company, and a private consultant who works with growers on IPM in protected culture), one urban and one periurban farm from Indiana, one urban farm from Illinois, one experienced farm from NY and another experienced farm from Maine. In 2023 we hosted a virtual meeting of the group and our academic team. There are 19 farms participating in Indiana, 10 farms in Illinois, and 8 farms in New England. These farms vary in size, crop diversity, market outlets, and geographic location along a rural-urban gradient. During this year we continued data collection and collaboration on these farms. Changes/Problems:As mentioned above, we had one faculty member from UNH leave the university, get a new position with USDA-ARS and move to a role on our advisory board. One student transition occurred at the University of Illinois. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Training occurred at field day events, during on-farm visits and through presentations at Extension events. These various activities are mentioned above. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our website continues to host all the information related to our project: https://ag.purdue.edu/department/entm/extension/scri/index.html We also stay engaged with our target audience through an Instagram account with 211 followers @hightunnelipm What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will be completing our own-farm data collection and continue to conduct manipulative experiments across multiple high tunnels at the Meigs research farm affiliated with Purdue University. The post-doc on the project will be working hard to analyze all the data we have collected for the past 2 years. We will be focusing on building extension/educational materials from the results that we have been able to identify and learn from our on-farm observations and data collection. Each of our participating farmers will get a customized report of what we found on their farm and how it compares to the global averages from all the sites we visited. We are excited to create these reports and begin to address some of our research questions related to geography, seasonality, and cropping dynamics.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We aimed to improve our recommendations for pest management in high tunnels and thus far we have been able to identify the most dominant pests across all growing seasons, aphids. Our efficacy trials have revealed that during winter production lacewing larvae are the most efficacious predator to manage aphids and Sil-Matrix was the most effective pesticide that we evaluated. This information has been published in a peer-reviewed journal article and shared through posters and oral presentations at a variety of venues listed above. We concluded our research evaluating the impact of row covers, low-tunnels and active vs. passive management of these within high tunnels for leafy greens and strawberry production during the winter months. Results have been submitted to a peer-reviewed publications. Some of it has been shared at Extension events. Co-PI Torres and her team have made significant progress on developing the HortCalculator, hosting webinars and launching a beta version of the tool that allows growers to evaluate the economic pros and cons of using biological control as a pest management strategy. It has been described as an enterprise budget on steroids! Through our on-farm work and data analysis we have a better understanding of the role that weeds can play in high tunnel systems, as a source of pests as well as a reservoir for natural enemies. This peer-reviewed publication is in prep. The results have been shared at many farmer-learning events.
Publications
- Type:
Other Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Willden, S.A. P, Guan, W., and L.L. Ingwell. 2024. Impact of selected acaricides against twospotted spider mite on 7 strawberry varieties grown in high tunnel, 2023. Arthropod Management Tests 49(1). Tsae064
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Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:We have three different populations/groups that we intended to recruit to complete this project: academic team (students, post docs, etc.), advisory board members and our collaborating farmers. In the second year of this project we were able to retain our collaborating farmers, replace one advisory board member because of a change in positions within the company, and grow our academic team to support the work. Our Advisory panel that was established the previous year contained growers and industry representatives from across the region in which the work is centered. with our recruitment efforts. We wanted to have representation from urban and rural farmers varying in size, the chemical and biological industry. We also wanted age, gender and race representation. We ended up with three industry representatives (one from a biocontrol company, one from a biopesticide company, and a private consultant who works with growers on IPM in protected culture), one urban and one periurban farm from Indiana, one urban farm from Illinois, one very experienced farm from NY and another very experienced farm from Maine. We have engaged with this group at an advisory board meeting held in conjunction with the Great Lakes Fruit and Veg Expo in Grand Rapids, MI in December 2022. We aimed to recruit 40 farmers, spanning an urban to rural production gradient, across the geographic regions where the project is based (Illinois, Indiana, New England). Our objectives required representation of participants that span all sizes, locations and growing practices, making this a large undertaking. The work was coordinated by the postdoctoral researcher at Purdue (PI-Ingwell). We started with support letters, then relied on our Extension audiences to further solicit participants. We also used social media (mainly Facebook) and support from local grower groups or organizations that support farmers (Market Farmers in Indiana, Hoosier Young Farmer Coalition, etc.). We have representation of gender, age, farm size and race among our participating farmers. There are 19 farms participating in Indiana, 10 farms in Illinois, and 8 farms in New England. We are just three farms shy of our original goal and satisfied with the diversity of representation and ability to address our research questions with this number of participants. Data collection occurred on these farms throughout the duration of the reporting period. During this reporting period the academic team at UNH remained constant. Dr. Athey at the University of Illinois recruited a new graduate student to replace one who left the project. At Purdue, Dr. Ingwell recruited one PhD and one MS. student to fill all the graduate student positions on the project. A number of undergraduate and international visiting scholars have been employed and are contributing to the project. Changes/Problems:We have continued to experience technical issues with the data loggers that we purchased to collect environmental data on each of our collaborating farms. This has resulted in periods of no data collection and time spent by personnel trying to repair and replace equipment. from. One of the project co-PIs from UNH has left their position and therefore the on-farm observations in that region have ended earlier than we anticipated. We are working to replace that person to help with data management and publication from that portion of the project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our on-farm collaborators participating in the project received data logger stations set up in their high tunnels. They were trained on how to use the loggers and gain access to the data so that they can monitor the growing environment inside and out of their high tunnels. As a result of recent identification of a 'new to Indiana pest' we deployed Tomato pinworm traps in 2023 and taught growers how to identify this damaging pest in their tomatoes. During these visits we also consulted with them on pest management, crop health and took soil samples to monitor for root knot nematode. A subset of participants were trained in how to deploy entomopathogenic nematodes for pest management of soil-dwelling invertebrate pests. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have had the opportunity to share our findings with farmer participants and our advisory board. We have also communicated with the broader production community through publications in Extension newsletters, presentations at grower meetings, hosted webinars, and published one peer-reviewed publication looking at aphid management in winter high tunnel crops. In addition, we have established a website to host all of the information related to our project: https://ag.purdue.edu/department/entm/extension/scri/index.html We also stay engaged with our target audience through an Instagram account with 211 followers @hightunnelipm What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to disseminate our results through Extension and Professional channels. Our on-farm data collection will be wrapping up in October 2024. We aim to hire an additional post-doctorate on the project to assist with data analysis. We anticipate several peer-reviewed publications to come out during the next reporting period and our economic team aims to have a trial version of the online economic planning tool available for our participating farmers to test. We will hold an in-person advisory board meeting in winter 2024.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our advisory board and project team are fully staffed, and we are making progress in all aspects of the proposed research. We were able to complete a full year of on-farm data collection with our farmer collaborators throughout the regions. In addition, we presented our early findings at 5 grower conferences, hosted 1 webinar, participated in 3 field days, and produced 6 Extension newsletter publications; all these resources were presented to the end user, farmers. In addition, we have been able to share the project and its findings with colleagues and others in our various professions through 5 guest lectures/seminars and 8 presentations at professional society meetings, one of which was an international event. We have been able to engage with each other, as an interdisciplinary project team, and with our advisory board throughout the project thus far, refining our objectives, approach, and messaging. Several undergraduate and international visiting scholars have been assisting with the data collection and analysis, resulting in training of the next generation of scientists.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Willden, S.A., Zablah, A., Wallingford, A. and L.L. Ingwell. 2024. Management of aphids on winter high tunnel crops. Biological Control 192: 105511. DOI:10.1016/j.biocontrol.2024.105511
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2024
Citation:
Willden, S.A., and L.L. Ingwell. 2024. Impact of selected biorational insecticides against potato aphids on high tunnel tomato, 2023. Arthropod Management Tests 49 (1): tsae043. DOI:10.1093/amt/tsae043
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience: The first year of our project was focused on recruitment. We have three different populations/groups that we intended to recruit to complete this project: academic team (students, post docs, etc.), advisory board members and our collaborating farmers. Efforts to recruit members of our academic team were done individually at each participating university. At Purdue we placed a joint add for graduate students and post docs recruiting for both the entomology and horticulture positions. The add was disseminated via social media (Facebook, twitter) and through our network of colleagues. We also advertised through events hosted by our professional societies (Entomological Society of America, American Horticultural Society). The participants at the University of Illinois have recruited two international PhD students to work on the entomological and economic aspects of the project housed at that institution. At Purdue University one postdoctoral scholar has been hired (PI Ingwell) and two graduate students (M.S. with PI Torres and PhD with PI Kaplan). There are still two open graduate student positions for the Purdue component of the project (PhD with PI Ingwell and MS with PI Guan). UNH is not hiring anyone at this time. To establish our Advisory panel we targeted both growers and industry representatives with our recruitment efforts. We wanted to have representation from urban and rural farmers varying in size, the chemical and biological industry. We also wanted age, gender and race representation. We directly contacted individuals who provided letters of support for the grant and then expanded as needed to fill the positions. Lastly we aimed to recruit 40 farmers, spanning an urban to rural production gradient, in was of the geographic regions where the project is based (Illinois, Indiana, New England). Our objectives require representation of participants that span all sizes, locations and growing practices, making this a large undertaking. The work was coordinated by the postdoctoral researcher at Purdue (PI Ingwell). We started with support letters, then relied on our Extension audiences to further solicit participants. We also used social media (mainly Facebook) and support from local grower groups or organizations that support farmers (Market Farmers in Indiana, Hoosier Young Farmer Coalition, etc.). We have representation of gender, age, farm size and race among our participating farmers. Changes/Problems:We have had some challenges recruiting students to the project and have worked with visiting scholars to provide opportunities to train them and make progress on the work. We purchased a large number of data loggers to begin the environmental data collection but are having technical problems with the equipment and are going back and forth with the company they were purchased from. This has resulted in lost data. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our on-farm collaborators participating in the project received data logger stations set up in their high tunnels. They were trained on how to use the loggers and gain access to the data so that they can monitor the growing environment inside and out of their high tunnels. During these visits we also consulted with them on pest management, crop health and took soil samples to monitor for root knot nematode How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?At this point in the project, we don't have a lot of results to share but we are establishing mechanisms to communicate with our participants. We have created an email list serve and an Instagram account, based on the preferences of our collaborators. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We aim to fill the remaining gaps in relation to graduate students and collaborating farmers for the project. We will make progress on each of the research questions, host an advisory board meeting and share our results in extension articles and at field days and scientific meetings.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our project is trying to improve production in high tunnels by better understanding the abiotic and biotic conditions within these growing structures. We are focusing on the seasonality to better understand the capacity of growers to produce in the off-season AND the insect community dynamics to minimize crop losses. These questions are being asked across an urban-rural gradient to determine if 'location' has an impact on the growing environment (i.e. heat island effect or patch dynamics) Our immediate impact will be improved recommendations for crop production in high tunnels, specifically targeting crop selection based on season, pest management including chemical and biological control. We will be able to communicate these results with high tunnel producers in each of our respective regions (IN, IL and NH). We will then be able to translate and share this work beyond the study region. One of our grant goals is to evaluate the difference in the insect complexes found in high tunnels located in various regions (urban vs. rural) and the tunnels opting for different cultural practices (monoculture vs. polyculture). Evaluating the insect complexes in the tunnels is one of the first and fundamental steps of this research. For the summer 2022, the Illinois entomology team sampled nine tunnels located across Illinois. Tunnels include conventional, sustainable, and organic growers. Insects were sampled using yellow sticky traps at the weekly interval and plant counts at monthly intervals. The plants sampled were tomatoes and peppers. During plant counts, plants were sampled for the presence /absence of pests (aphids, thrips, whiteflies, and spider mites) and counting the natural enemies (parasitic wasp, spiders, aphid mummies, Orius, lacewing (egg, larva, and adult) and ants). Six plants in a row were sampled. Ten predators were collected from each tunnel during plant counts for the gut-content analysis. Sampling continued throughout the season until the crop harvest was complete. The data from the tunnels is still being processed. However, we were able to analyze sticky trap data of one of our nine tunnels that are in the suburbs of Chicago. We evaluated the mean pest population of Potato leafhopper, thrips, whitefly, and aphids at the weekly interval using sticky traps from 26 May 2022 to 25 August 2022. We do have data from other groups as well, but we chose to concentrate on the focal greenhouse pests for our preliminary data. Results show that the population of thrips was found to be significantly higher than other pests. We saw a surge in the thrips population from 26 May 2022 to 26 June 2022. After 26 June, the thrips population started to decline. We will be analyzing the data from other tunnels and other pest groups this fall. After that, we will be able to give a better idea of the pest pressure with respect to the time and cultivation practices of the HTs located across Illinois. Progress was made on Objective 2.2 in the context of evaluating the functional response of predators at extreme temperatures. The UNH team conducted preliminary Petri dish bioassay comparing the functional response of Chrysopa and Adalia larvae (BioBest) at differing temperatures on spinach infested with Myzus persicae (collected from a tunnel in Durham, March 2022) and sentinel wheat grass infested with BCOA. For Objective 3.1 the UNH team worked on sentinel prey experiments with the objective of quantifying the impact of natural enemies on pest suppression in high tunnels. The development of this method was an attempt to standardize the prey population size and measure the contribution of natural enemies to pest suppression in commercial settings. We selected bird-cherry oat aphid (BCOA) infested wheat as a sentinel for our study system because this aphid species is not a vegetable crop pest but would be an appropriate prey item to evaluate the performance of generalist predators. Unfortunately, our 2022 trials revealed that the BCOA used in our study system were not as tolerant to low temperature and humidity as winter-acclimated aphid species that we typically observe in commercial tunnels. In lieu of sentinel prey experiments, will be carrying out microcosm experiments to quantify the impact of natural enemies on pest suppression in HTs We deployed commercially acquired predators and aphid-infested plants in each of four tunnels at commercial vegetable farms in NH and ME, March, 2022. We randomly assigned treatments to each tunnel, releasing 1000 Chrysoperla larvae into each of two tunnels and 100 Adalia larvae in each of two tunnels. Eight sentinels were placed in the crop where predators might find and consume them, and eight sentinels were placed inside cages (30x30x30 cm; BioQuip) to protect aphids from predation. We counted the number of BCOA on sentinel plants before and 7 d after they were deployed in tunnels. We also made observations in the crops, carefully inspecting 20 plants throughout the tunnel and recording the number of aphids infested leaves. UNH and Purdue worked collaboratively to develop protocols and test the efficacy of entomopathogenic nematode releases in high tunnels to manage thrips for HT tomato production. Thrips feeding causes cosmetic injury to tomato fruit and some species can transmit viruses that kill plants (e.g. TSWV). There is a history of chemical resistance in those same species, so many growers rely on aggressive but insufficient spray programs to manage thrips in affected HTs. Part of the life cycle occurs below-ground, where they can't be reached with chemical applications. EPNs represent an opportunity for biological control of below-ground life stages and therefore a potential tool for insecticide resistance management (IRM). In spring of 2022, we collaborated with three commercial HT tomato growers in New Hampshire and two additional commercial growers in Indiana to deploy EPNs with known thrips populations in their crops through existing irrigation systems. We compared EPN persistence or "biological control potential" of tunnel soils treated with S. feltiae (BASF; 50 M/tunnel) versus an untreated control tunnel of similar size and crop using waxworm bioassays. Three soil cores (1" D x 2" depth) were collected from two areas of each high tunnel site roughly 20 cm away from tomato stems pre and post EPN inoculation. Soil cores were stored in re-closable plastic bags at 10C until waxworm bioassays were conducted. We recovered a small portion of soil to assess soil moisture, weighing each sample pre and post drying. Ten waxworm larvae were placed in each plastic bag and survival was assessed every 48 hr. until all individuals had died or pupated. Bags were stored in complete darkness at 25C. Waxworm cadavers were placed in white traps to determine EPN presence after 10 days in inoculation at 25C.We also scouted each tunnel to assess the number of thrips active on the tomato plantsby tapping leaves and flowers over a white surface and counting the number of adults and nymphs present. Plant tapping was estimated at six locations in each tunnel. Scouting data was shared with farmer collaborators and they were allowed to treat their crop according to their wishes. They have agreed to share their spray records. At all three sites in NH, we found that EPN persistence was poor, even within 4 days after application. Naturally occurring EPNs (species unknown) were found in one of two high tunnel sites in Indiana. EPNs were recovered at both sites 7 days post inoculation of S. feltiae.
Publications
- Type:
Journal Articles
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2022
Citation:
Guan, Wenjing, Dean Haseman, Laura Ingwell and Daniel S. Egel. 2022. Strawberry cultivar evaluation for fall-planted high tunnel systems. HortTechnology 32:6
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