Cornell researchers convened a daylong meeting of 50 researchers and growers from across the Northeast and Canada this past November to consider strategies for managing the invasive spotted wing drosophila — SWD for short. Photo: Bev Gerdman, Washington State University.Scientists tackle tiny fly that’s big trouble for berry growers [Cornell Chronicle 1/4/2013] – Spotted wing drosophila — SWD for short — is poorly understood and highly destructive. “That’s a terrible combination,” says Julie Carroll, the fruit integrated pest management (IPM) coordinator for the New York State IPM Program, based at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in Geneva, N.Y. Cornell researchers convened a daylong meeting of 50 researchers and growers from across the Northeast and Canada this past November to consider strategies for managing the pest.
Worms Produce Another Kind of Gold for Growers [New York Times 12/31/2012] – Eric Nelson, Dept. of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, is studying how compost suppresses disease. “The key is understanding why these microbes do what they do,” he says. Still, the industry suffers from image problems. “It’s hard to bring it out of the ‘It’s cute to have a worm box in my backyard’ approach and put it on par with other strategies for waste management,” says Allison Jack, who earned her doctorate by studying vermicompost at Cornell and is now teaching at Prescott College in Arizona.
