SWD on SFNToday

Check out the Southern Farm Network for the first of two stories on spotted wing drosophila (SWD).  Today's story focused on SWD's damage potential and management tools while tomorrow will highlight the SWD*VMN.

Update
The second SWD story, highlighting the SWD*VMN has been posted at Southern Farm Network.  Listen to it here.

More information
Spotted wing drosphila present in the Carolinas - Southern Farm Network
Spotted Wing Drosophila First Responder Network Widening in Mid-Atlantic States - Southern Farm Network

The next generation of the SWD*VMN

It's been an exciting and busy month for the spotted wing drosophila volunteer monitoring network (SWD*VMN)! We've detected SWD in several additional locations (Clay and Madison Counties in North Carolina, Frederick County in Virginia, Jefferson County in West Virginia).

A new online home
I have been in search of a more user friendly way to enter and display our data, and I am proud to announce that this week, our new web home went live. SWN*VMN is now at EDDMapS. At this site, you can see all the locations we have caught SWD in the past, where we are capturing SWD this year, , and all the trapping data for each of our 66 locations! To navigate, click on your county of interest. This will take you to a list of the data for all the sites in that county, from newest to oldest. If you would like to see data for just one site, click on that site's name. To get back to the SWD*VMN home, just click the logo at the top of the page. I'll also link to a live map from here for quick updates.

2011 SWD detection in SWD*VMN.  See here for detections by month. 

Seeking citizen scientists
Keep your eyes peeled for our new solicitation for volunteers at Science for Citizens.  Our submission is in review, but as soon as it's posted, I'll share the link here!  Now that we have 2 field seasons of new finds under our belt with expert observers, we are looking to expand the SWD*VMN to include the public.  In particular, we are interested in developing classroom tools and empowering students to monitor for SWD at schools.

More information
Eastern SWD*VMN - EDDMapS

Tolerance to organic controls observed in California SWD population

Mark Bolda, Santa Cruz, Monterey & San Benito UC County Farm Adviser, has reported on recent laboratory assays conducted in California demonstrating tolerance to Pyganic (pyrethrins), an organic insecticide used against spotted wing drosophila (SWD). The assays were conducted on a population that had been treated in the field with Pyganic many times.

Organic management tools for SWD are very limited. Entrust (spinosad) and Pyganic (pyrethrins) are the two most effective organic control methods, but both have short residual control times and must be applied frequently. This means that SWD are exposed to pesticides over multiple generations, which is a recipe for resistance development. The same situation exists with conventional insecticides, but there are more modes of action available to rotate, which lessens the likelihood of short term resistance development.

The two-year period from SWD detection to potential pesticide tolerance development is definitely short term and only highlights the fact that we need to manage SWD on a system-wide scale: optimizing non chemical/cultural management to reduce populations, wisely selecting pesticides, and rotating modes of action.

More information
Suspected Tolerance to Pyganic (pyrethrin) Found in Spotted Wing Drosophila - Strawberries and Caneberries Blog

Grape Root Borer*Volunteer Monitoring Network trapping data now available

The Grape Root Borer*Volunteer Monitoring Network (GRB*VMN) has been up and running for a month, but the first, substantial trap captures occurred last week. The network consists of 10 locations in 7 North Carolina counties. Trap captures from these sites will be available here through the end of October, when the grape root borer flight is expected to end.

2011 GRB*VMN sites. Sites are only identified to the county level and assigned a number for record keeping purposes when there are multiple sites per county.

Monitoring locations and trapping data are listed below, from east to west:

Jones County 1

Rowan County 1

Rowan County 2

Davie County 1

Yadkin County 1

Surry County 1

Surry County 2

Surry County 3

Wilkes County 1

Haywood County 1

The highest number of trap captures is currently in Davie County with a few other locations catching a few moths. It is interesting that our flight appears to be occurring so late in the year, since reports of moth captures begin in July last year. We are monitoring the grape root borer flight in North Carolina to better understand when and where our highest populations occur. This information is important when making grape root borer management decisions, in particular whether or not to use currently labeled pesticides, which must be used either 30 days before harvest or after harvest. If you are interested in monitoring grape root borer yourself, see here for more information.

More information Do it yourself - Grape root borer monitoring

Southeastern strawberry preplant meetings underway

The 2011 strawberry preplant meetings are underway, and I will be attending the Sandhills meeting tonight in Carthage, NC. You can find a list of all upcoming strawberry preplant meetings here. Tonight I will be discussing spotted wing drosophila (SWD) biology and significance in strawberries and strawberry clipper considerations.

Strawberry clipper is a relatively infrequent pest in the southeast, but the North Carolina Sandhills is a clipper hot spot. I am planning an on farm trial in this region next spring to address some of the key questions about strawberry clipper management. Namely, how much does clipper damage impact strawberry yield, and how do southeastern strawberries respond to damage?

For those not able to attend preplants, the SWD slides I will be covering are embedded below. Bear in mind that the maps in this presentation are current as of July 2011 and are subject to change.



I will also be attending the South Carolina preplant on August 18, 2011 where SWD will be the main topic.

More information
Preplant meetings and fumigation resources - NC Strawberry Association
Strawberry clipper posts - NC Small Fruit & Specialty Crop IPM

Summer 2011 Spotted Wing Drosophila update

It's been a very busy week in the world of southeastern spotted wing drosophila (SWD). As of today, we have either confirmed or strongly suspected (pending confirmation) 2011 SWD detections in the following North Carolina Counties:

Anson

Ashe

Bladen

Craven

Durham

Edgecombe

Greene

Halifax

Henderson

Johnston

Jones

Lee

Lenoir

Lincoln

Cleveland

New Hanover

Onslow

Person

Pender

Rockingham

Sampson

Wake

Wayne

Both trap captures and reproductive activity have taken off in the last 3 weeks, which is similar to 2010, with our first detections occurring in July.

In addition, we have also detected SWD in Virginia for the first time in Hanover County and detected SWD in Barnwell County, SC (SWD was found in 2010 in Saluda, Lexington, and Spartanburg Counties, SC).

I will be posting links to trapping data for individual sites later this week; stay tuned.

Update, 27 July 2011
This morning, I confirmed SWD at 3 locations in Cabarrus County, North Carolina.

Update, 1 August 2011
SWD has now been confirmed from Davie, Halifax, Lincoln, Cleveland, Rowan, and Surry Counties in North Carolina and Sussex County in Virginia in 2011.

Update, 8 August 2011
SWD has now been confirmed from Frederick County in Virginia in 2011.

Update, 9 September 2011
SWD has now been confirmed from Macon County in North Carolina Montgomery County in Virginia in 2011.

Changes are afoot!

Tobacco hornworm larva coated with Cotesia congregata cocoons.

Observant readers may have noticed that NC Small Fruit, Specialty Crop, & Tobacco IPM is now NC Small Fruit & Specialty Crop IPM.  As of today, new posts on tobacco integrated pest managment will move to Dominic Reisig's new blog, NC Crops.  When Dominic began NC Crops a few weeks ago, I asked him if he thought there was room there for tobacco IPM information as well, and he graciously invited me on over.

I love working on tobacco, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, grapes, hops, and any other new speciality crops that the growers of North Carolina decide to throw at me! However, I realize that the audiences for information on all of these crops do not always overlap.  Moving tobacco IPM info to NC Crops will allow me to focus on berries and specialty crops here and better serve my tobacco audience there.

The tobacco posts from this blog will continue to be archived and accessible here at NC Small Fruit & Specialty Crop IPM.

I hope to see the tobacco crew and any other interested readers over at NC Crops!