CtLartcaster Fanning. Saturday, March 14, 1998 IPM Awards Given At NYS Vegetable Conference LIVERPOOL, N.Y. Three awards for outstanding work in in tegrated pest management were presented at the 1998 NYS Vege table Conference. The winners growers Tim and Colleen Stanton, private con sultant Richard Wikiman, and ve getable IPM coordinator Curtis Petzoldt—have been establishing innovative IPM practices for the Northeast since the 1980 s. Half a dozen NYS IPM awards are presented each year to indivi duals or groups showing leader ship in minimizing economic, health, and environmental risks. According to IPM Program direc tor James Tette, the purpose of the award is to “honor people for de veloping new IPM methods or for sharing IPM with others.” The Stantons practice IPM on a family farm in Feura Bush, N.Y., that they have owned together for 11 years. They devote nearly 400 acres to production of hay and other Held crops, small fruits, ve getables. and greenhouse plants. Tim Stanton, who is in charge of most of the daily farm opera tions, uses rotation, resistant varieties, pest traps, conservation tillage, and a host of other IPM methods. He is willing to try new ideas and cooperates regularly with extension faculty and staff affiliated with Cornell University. In recent years he has helped to develop the use of rye mulch for pumpkin production, tested pow dery mildew-resistant pumpkins, participated in pumpkin variety trials, and hosted informational twilight meetings for growers. He has also conducted trials for re ducing bird damage on sweet com and has evaluated biological con trols to combat sweet com insects. Colleen Stanton and her sister operate a seasonal form stand, “Our Family’s Harvest,” in New Scotland, N.Y. This retail store is supplied with produce that is wholesaled from Stanton’s Feura Farm, and Colleen speaks regular ly with customers about how the food is grown. “I don’t know how anybody couldn’t get in to IPM these days,” said Colleen. “If you’re not using IPM, you’re probably throwing money away.” Colleen regularly monitors with sticky cards in their two green houses. Richard Wildman, president of Agricultural Consulting Services, Inc., might be considered a mod em pioneer in the fiel of IPM. His business, begun in 1983, was one of the earliest private crop-con sulting firms in the state. Today, Wildman’s full-time staff of 10 swells during the growing season, when they offer production advice on some 70,000 acres of vege tables and field crops. Agricultural Consulting Ser vices, Inc. serves growers in New York, Pennsylvania, and Massa chusetts. According to Curt Pet zoldt, assistant director of the NYS IPM Program, Wildman’s firm has helped growers of pro cessing sweet-corn reduce num bers of pesticide applications by up to SO percent in New York. Wildman’s work with tomato pro cessors has also resulted in sub stantial savings in pesticide use, both economically and environ mentally. Wildman originated the con cept of fully integrated crop pro duction, which embraces nutrient management planning and soil re sources in a “whole farm” ap poach. He has also developed on form crop management software that helps growers with record keeping and other tasks. Wildman says one of his greatest contri butions has been “bringing IPM into a format that’s readily and in tensively adopted by growers.” To improve scouting tech niques on snap beans, cabbage, and other vegetables, Wildman shares his knowledge with Exten sion faculty and staff at Cornell University. He also serves on the IPM Commodity Working Group for Vegetables, where he evalu ates PM research and implemen tation proposals. Wildman studied horticultural science at Colorado State Univer sity, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1979. He is on the exe cutive boards of the National Alli ance of Independent Crop Con Technology, Quality, and Value- That’s Morton Build! 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KU. box 126, variations, these prices do not include concrete Offer expires April 30,1998 Prices may vary for every Gettysburg, PA 17325 Phillipsburg, NJ 08865 1,000 feet over 6,000 feet of elevation ■ KYNAR 500® Trademark of Elf Atochem, NA MYLAR 5000® Trademark of Ausimont, USA Q/l/1 AA AT AO f* Illinois only, call FLUOROFLEX 2000® and AlumaSteel® Trademarks of Morton Buildings, Inc jCTT 4 m 4 jrOO 1-800-426-6686 sultants and the Professional Agri cultural Consultants of New York State. Curtis Petzoldt, assistant direc tor of the NYS IPM Program and vegetable IPM coordinator for the state, is rarely content with the sta tus quo. With one foot in a cab bage field and the other in the fu ture, he encourages practices that change the ways farmers and con sumers do business. In 1996, Petzoldt and area IPM educator Timothy Weiglc founded die Northeast Weather Associa tion a nonprofit membership organization that provides grow ers with timely weather data and pest forecasts. The specific in formation helps producers deter mine when diseases and insects need to be controlled, and whether sprays can be delayed or elimin ated. Said Petzoldt. “Membership in the Northeast Weather Associa tion grew 56 percent between the first and second year. In the com ing year, we will offer weather based pest and crop models for producers of ornamentals and field crops.” In 1997, Petzoldt and his col leagues sought to manage Euro pean com borer on fresh-market sweet com by releasing micro scopic beneficial wasps and ap plying Bt (a biological insecti cide). With these practices, they averted up to three applications of chemical pesticides and achieved marketable quality corn. This re search is part of a multi-year inter disciplinary project comparing four vegetable growing systems (conventional. IPM present, IPM future, and organic) to assess which practices can be incorpor ated into present and future crop ping systems. Anthony Shelton, associate director of the New York State Agricultural Experi ment Station, says “Petzoldt has doggedly pursued the develop ment of IPM for vegetables and other crops. He is widely re spccted by those who work with him, not only in New York, but also nationally.” In 1998, Petzoldt will take pan in national meetings that focus not only on IPM labeling of foods, but how labeling could cross state lines. The New York State IPM Program, with Petzoldt at the helm, has responded to private sector demands for IPM-grown products for several years. Weg mans Food Markets, for example, now carries nearly 14 kinds of ve getables with the NYSIPM label Petzoldt has worked for more than a decade with growers, private consultants, and private industry to develop IPM guidelines, en abling crops to be grown in ways that are economically and en vironmentally sound. Prior to joining the IPM Pro gram in 1985, Petzoldt was a rep resentative for Lilly Research La boratories and Elanco Products. He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in plant pathology from the University of California (Da vis) and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Bales College.