For the 2022 funding year, SIPMC received 21 proposals with total requested funds of $625,206. Of those, 10 projects were funded, including 3 working groups, for a total of $311,289.
The following projects were funded by the Southern IPM Center’s 2022 Southern IPM grants. Click on each one to expand their summaries.
For more details about a project, visit the Grants Management System.
2022 Working Groups
PI: Dr. Daniel Collins
Alcorn State University, Mississippi
Amount Funded: $28,915
Socially disadvantaged small farmers are more vulnerable to losses due to lack of IPM knowledge, limited resources, and challenging circumstances for managing plant pests and most IPM projects focus on large farms. Yield losses due to sub-tropical climate conditions, weather extremes (e.g., hurricanes, drought, tornados), and pest outbreaks have been substantial. Alcorn is taking the lead in organizing a multi-state-territory interdisciplinary IPM working group of 1890 Land-Grant Universities and uniting with a diverse group of small farmers, entrepreneurs, students, and agricultural alliances to address key agricultural problems and identify IPM research and extension needs of small farmers to help facilitate the economic development of small farmers.
PI: Dr. Rebecca Melanson
Central Mississippi Research & Extension Center
Amount Funded: $38,000
During the past 25 years, viruses infecting cucurbit crops, including cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, squashes, and watermelons, have emerged in the cucurbit producing areas of the United States at an alarming rate. The Emerging Viruses in Cucurbits Working Group is improving communication and virus knowledge across the industry as well as developing strategies to successfully identify and mitigate virus threats to cucurbit production in the United States and includes regional, national, and international members from all sectors of the cucurbit industry.
Dr. Yoosook Lee
University of Florida – Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory
Amount Funded: $40,000
In the southeastern United States, several mosquitoes of medical and veterinary importance are invasive mosquito species and their presence increases the risk of arbovirus transmission to humans and livestock. This continuing working group – Mosquito BEACONS: Biodiversity Enhancement And Control of Non-native Species – implements an IPM approach for the monitoring and control of invasive mosquito species in the Southern region by bringing together mosquito control, public health, private pest control, and academics to raise awareness of invasive mosquito species issues in the southern region. BEACONS is working to improve communication and collaboration opportunities, describe the surveillance capacity for invasive and non-native taxa, and train a cadre of IPM professionals across the southern region.
2022 Capstone Projects
Dr. Blake Elkins
Texas A&M
Amount Funded: $30,000
The sugarcane aphid (Melanaphis sorghi) is an important and outbreak-prone insect pest of sorghum. This project aims to synthesize previously acquired spatial data on sugarcane aphid and its natural enemies to develop a quantitative spatially explicit model to forecast risk and guide use of IPM tools. This project links to a recent course (regional scale) model designed to assign region-specific outbreak risk of sugarcane aphid as affected by natural enemies and influences by agro-landscape and weather conditions. This project will produce a region-specific IPM guidance document and a more local risk/guidance tool as data allows.
Dr. David Held
Auburn University, Alabama
Amount Funded: $30,000
Crapemyrtle bark scale (CMBS), is an invasive scale that reduces the aesthetic value of crapemyrtle, decreasing its bloom size and vigor, causing branch dieback, and producing honeydew which leads to trunks and branches darkened with sooty mold. This Capstone project will combine the outcomes of Held Lab’s recent research with visual attractants and low risk alternative controls for management of CMBS in urban landscape with a goal to produce an innovative and actionable alternative to systemic insecticides for CMBS management, reducing preventive and indiscriminate use of neonicotinoid insecticides in urban landscapes for CMBS management.
2022 Seed Projects
Dr. Bernadette Mach
University of Florida
Amount Funded: $29,774
Many IPPM strategies rely on comprehensive toxicological data to understand the susceptibility of pollinators to insecticides, the severity of potential adverse impacts, and the duration of hazardous effects with most pollinator toxicological data focusing on bee species. Lepidopterans (i.e. butterflies and moths) pollinate plants as adults, fulfill important ecological functions as herbivores, and play a major role in supporting food webs as larvae. Using the monarch butterfly-oleander aphid-milkweed system is an ideal model for developing IPPM strategies for beneficial lepidopteran conservation, this project will identify insecticide active ingredients, application rates, treatment windows, and management programs that are compatible with beneficial insect conservation, but control key pests.
PI: Dr. Alejandro Del Pozo-Valdivia, Virginia Tech
Amount Funded: $30,000
Mealybugs have become a key pest for open-field nurseries growing ornamental plants in Virginia. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost due to the inability to sell mealybug infested ornamental plants, especially when selling them across State lines. In addition, nursery growers are spending significant amounts of money on their pest management budgets to control this insect during the past three years. Nursery growers in Virginia and elsewhere have a need for science-based solutions to successfully manage this insect.
This seed project is proposing using boxwood as a case study to promote the scouting of this key pest in the field, as well as understanding the preference of mealybugs for different boxwood cultivars. Having an established monitoring method for this pest will impact insecticide use, reducing non-target effects on the beneficials in affected systems. Knowing what cultivars are more susceptible to mealybugs will also inform growers on how to prioritize monitoring by scouting the most susceptible boxwood cultivars first. And, to maximize chemical control of this pest, one additional goal of this project is to evaluate the efficacy of several insecticide active ingredients and regimes under field conditions to reduce mealybugs populations in boxwood. Ultimately, generated information from this proposal will inform mealybug management programs for nurseries in Virginia and across the region.
PI: Dr. Brett Blaauw
University of Georgia
Amount Funded: $23,897
While most peach varieties are self-pollinating, many varieties of peaches have nectar producing lobes on their leaves, known as extra-floral nectaries (EFNs) that are attractive to insects and lure pollinators into the orchards even after crop bloom. This subsequently has the potential to subject the EFN visiting pollinators to commonly used systemic insecticides. The increased risk to insects visiting peach orchards may affect the insect community of other pollinator-dependent crops nearby within the region. This project aims to determine whether neonicotinoids are present in EFN of peaches when applied at standard dose rates over time, improving the sustainability of insect management programs and mitigate non-target effects on pollinator communities.
PI: Dr. Wesley Everman
North Carolina State University
Amount Funded: $29,837
Non-target herbicide injury has become increasingly problematic in agronomic and horticultural crops, and in urban landscapes. Crop injury results from drift, contaminated compost and hay, manure, composts, grass clippings, contaminated irrigation water, and misapplication. Content including an overview of herbicide injury diagnostic procedures, herbicide modes-of-action and symptomology, common routes of exposure, and response strategies for growers will be disseminated through in-person events for Cooperative Extension agents and Department of Agriculture pesticide inspectors while also offering public asynchronous content.
PI: Dr. Alejandro Del Pozo-Valdivia
Virginia Tech
Amount Funded: $30,000
The Japanese maple scale, or JMS, is a key pest for open-field nurseries growing ornamental trees and shrubs in Virginia. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been lost due to the inability to sell JMS infested ornamental plants, and nursery growers are spending significant amounts of money on their pest management budgets to control this insect. This seed project uses boxwood as a case study to promote the use of the tape method for monitoring JMS crawlers, as well as understanding the preference of JMS for different boxwood cultivars as Nursery growers in VA and elsewhere have a need for science-based solutions to successfully manage this scale.