Northeastern IPM Center Partnership Grants Projects Funded, 2006

*Award shown is total amount to be used over the course of the project term.

Project Summary

This proposal details the plan of work for the NEIPM Center Community IPM Working Group. Members represent the broad range of stakeholders that are covered in the Community IPM area. They have been proactive in passing information from the Center to their own organizations and peers. This serves to engage stakeholders with the Northeastern IPM Center and among the diverse stakeholders in Community IPM. The Community Working Group addresses priorities covered in one of the primary focus areas in the National IPM Road Map: “residential and public areas”. “The greatest general population exposure to pests and the tactics used to control them occurs where people live, work and play.”

The Working Group had a major role in organizing the first Northeast Regional Community and Urban IPM Conference in Manchester, NH during March 2005. We also investigated the Great Valley Conference Center and Longwood Gardens (both in Pennsylvania) as possible sites for the next conference in 2007. In setting research and extension priorities for the Northeast IPM Center, the Working Group recommended that community IPM efforts should focus in the near future on residential settings. We are organizing three sessions (all with a residential IPM focus) at the Fifth National IPM Symposium in St. Louis during April 2006.

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Objectives

1. The Working Group will assist in the development of a more user-friendly Community IPM section on the Northeastern IPM Center’s web site.

2. We will continue organizing and facilitate the three sessions at the Fifth National IPM Symposium. This will be associated with the development by the working group of a collaborative approach to residential IPM in the Northeast and beyond.

3. The Working Group will plan a targeted residential IPM outreach workshop.

4 . We will evaluate the effectiveness of educational pest displays as a means of producing region-wide outreach materials on residential IPM.

5 . The Working Group will initiate partnerships with one or more “box store” chains for the promotion of IPM in retail settings.

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Problem, Background, and Justification

The Northeast/mid-Atlantic is the most densely populated region of the United States with an average of more than 300 persons living on each square mile of land. In these states and the District more than 80% of the population lives in urban areas. In Maryland, reflective of the Northeast/mid-Atlantic, where urbanization and development cover 30 percent of the 9,800 square miles that constitutes our state and over 5.29 million people reside. In the region there are concerns about negative environmental impacts from the current management of lawns, gardens, parks and other public and private grounds. The area under urban land management (approximately 1.2 million acres) is only slightly less than the area devoted to agricultural crops (1.5 million acres). There are over one million urban area land managers while there are less than 14,000 farmers.

Homeowners are largely uninformed regarding the use of alternatives to pesticides for controlling pests in and around the home (unpublished HGIC survey, Raupp 1983). They use sources of information for pest identification and management that are largely unreliable and depend on pesticides as their primary management technique (Raupp et al 1992, Raupp and Davidson, unpublished, Raupp and Shrewsbury, unpublished). Similar situations exist for the pest control industries that serve homeowners. Many rely heavily on pesticides for controlling pests in structural, landscape and nursery settings. The adoption of non-chemical tactics under an IPM approach has unequivocal environmental benefits that include reductions in pesticide use of as much as 99% (Raupp et al. 1992). The adoption of non-chemical approaches in urban audiences can only occur if these audiences receive accurate information and alternatives to pesticides. Adopting these tactics will engage homeowners in the process of environmental stewardship; reduce their gardening and pest control costs and exposure to toxic chemicals. The adoption of non-chemical tactics under an IPM approach has produced reductions in pesticide use of as much as 99% (Raupp et al. 1992). Pesticide reductions can only help to ameliorate problems such as the evolution of resistance in pests and mortality of beneficial insect complexes.

School IPM is an important issue in the Northeast. The primary focus of which is to minimize exposure of children to pesticides while effectively controlling pests (Hollingsworth et al. 2002, Maine School IPM Program 2000, Maryland Department of Agriculture 1995, National Research Council 1993, Surgan et al. 2002, Vacco 1996). Schools are especially challenging to manage because they include such varied settings as classrooms, cafeterias, laboratories, auditoriums, theatres, athletic fields, playgrounds, and gardens. These areas are heavily used for a variety of purposes, including after-hours public sporting events and meetings (Braband, unpublished school interviews). Visitors, staff, and students are frequently in direct contact with the lawns, athletic fields, flowers, trees, playgrounds, and buildings on school grounds. At least 30% of New York State public school districts are applying pesticides in school buildings and on school grounds on a regular, prescheduled basis (Braband et al. 2002) – a practice that is antithetical to IPM.

Numerous studies have indicated that the amount of pesticide used by homeowners, renters, pest control operators, and landscape mangers in urban settings is significant and high. (Bottrell 1979) summarized studies conducted in the 1970’s, which found that more than 90% of homeowners applied pesticides in and around the home each year. Rates of insecticides used in major urban centers including Philadelphia, Lansing, and Dallas were about 5 lbs active ingredient/acre and exceeded those in nearby agricultural areas. Homeowners also used more fungicides and comparable amounts of herbicides to farmers (Bottrell 1979). In a study of more than 400 homeowners in New Brunswick, NJ, Dallas, TX, and Berkeley, CA, (Frankie et al. 1981) reported that the average home dweller used chemicals ten times each year for indoor problems and seven times each year for outdoor problems. The EPA indicated that pounds of active ingredient of conventional pesticides applied in the Home and Garden Market sector was 72 million (8% of the total 912 million) in 1998 and 80 million (9% of the total 912 million) in 1999 (Donaldson, Kiely and Grube 2002

In 2004 consumers spent and average of $449 per household on their lawns and gardens totaling $36.8 billion in retail sales. This compares with $38.4 billion in 2003, a decline of $1.6 billion. (National Gardening Survey 2004). A recent study conducted by the EPA indicated that the annual expenditures by homeowners on pesticides more than doubled from $1,002,000,000 in 1980 to $1,984,000,000 in 1999 (Donaldson, Kiely and Grube 2002). According to a report by the American Nursery & Landscape Association (2003), 24.7 million households spent $28,000,000 on professional landscape, lawn, and tree care services in 2002.

Turfgrass has become a major component of the landscape in the Northeast. In New York State alone, 10% of the state is in turfgrass with more than $79,000,000 being spent on pesticides in 2003 to manage turf at homes, golf courses, and schools. (New York Agricultural Statistics Service 2004). Almost half of this expenditure was by homeowners.

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Evaluation Plans

A follow up online evaluation/impact survey of NEIPM Regional Conference participants will be conducted. Members of the Community IPM Working Group will assist in development of survey questions to target impacts in Community IPM. The data collected will be analyzed and compiled to assist in determining Community IPM needs in research and extension.

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