The IPM Toolbox: "IPM Weather Apps and NEWA" - Webinar Recording

IPM Weather Apps and NEWA

Recorded May 18, 2016

Dr. Juliet Carroll, New York State IPM Program

Climate change is impacting weather patterns with more severe and intense weather events, such as rainfall exceeding 1.5 inches per hour, hail, and earlier spring warmth followed by freeze events. All impact crop production by impeding the ability to get into fields with flooded soil, damaging crops directly, or reducing crop yields. Warmer, wetter weather encourages plant diseases and promotes earlier arrival of insect pests. Growers benefit from 30 IPM and crop management tools built from weather data available in NEWA, the Network for Environment and Weather Applications that was created by the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program. NEWA’s tools help growers reduce pesticide inputs, improve spray timing, be alerted about pest risk levels, and enhance management practices, directly benefiting New York fruit and vegetable growers and our food supply and the environment. In 2007, apple, grape, onion, and potato growers reported saving, on average, $19,500 per year in spray costs and preventing $264,000 per year in crop loss as a direct result of using NEWA pest forecast tools. Ninety-nine percent of NEWA end users would recommend NEWA to growers. NEWA’s free web-based apps provide open-access to end-user friendly tools providing decision support, based on real-time weather, placing the ability to respond to severe weather events in the palm of the grower’s hand. Enjoying 2.6 million page views in 2014, newa.cornell.edu, has grown into a network of 395 weather stations reaching into 22 states in the Eastern United States.

Dr. Juliet Carroll has led the New York State IPM Program’s weather network, NEWA, the Network for Environment and Weather Applications, since 2005. As the Fruit IPM Coordinator for New York State, she recognizes the importance of weather in driving disease and insect development in orchards and vineyards and has worked with colleagues across the Northeast to develop NEWA into a user-friendly suite of apps to assist growers in their IPM and crop management decisions. In addition to leading NEWA, she helps fruit growers in New York use IPM tactics to protect their crops from insects, diseases, and weeds with minimum risk to the environment, their health, and crop yield. She holds a BS from the University of Maine in botany, an MS from the University of Massachusetts in plant pathology, and a PhD from Cornell University in plant pathology.