Tag Archives: IPM

The Tools I Want, Where I Want

That’s just what you’ll get on the Dashboard we’re building for NEWA. “The Tools I Want, Where I Want” on the Home page’s center will invite you to login and create a profile for your NEWA Dashboard. Here’s a quick video about our project with an introduction to the Dashboard. What’s new with NEWA? https://youtu.be/sL2p4AgWe98

We’ve been busy — building a responsive NEWA website with improved weather data quality from the 729 weather stations that share data in 25 states for our crop and IPM tools. Our new platform will shrink down beautifully on your phone and expand out on your desktop to give you easy-to-access, accurate tools for IPM decision-making.

Place-based extension resources and logos will provide partner credit and give you the experience of being in your own university’s setting. Each weather station location will acknowledge those who provide data to NEWA, yes, all 729 of them, and as many more as decide to plug in to NEWA.

Screenshot picture of the NEWA Dashboard, sized for a phone.

The Favorite station info on my NEWA Dashboard, sized for a phone.

A Stakeholder Innovation Workshop identified areas of need and set the stage for prioritizing NEWA’s content. One-on-one user experience (UX) research informed NEWA’s design. Our project advisory panel — producers, faculty, Extension specialists, state partners, and weather station owners — contributed advice on UX, architecture, design, functionality, and ADA compliance to heighten your experience when interacting with the responsive NEWA decision support system.

NEWA’s improved data handling will boost speed and enhance capacity to build more tools. The National Digital Forecast gridded data are being integrated as a backup data source for weather stations that fail to report data. Inclusion of these data greatly improves the reliability and loading speed of the NEWA tools.

When you have a Dashboard, your trap catch dates, and and other stuff used by NEWA’s tools, will be saved for the weather station location. You won’t have to enter this over and over and over again.

Prefer open access? NEWA Home now serves weather data from the weather station closest to your location, automatically, with an interactive map of NEWA weather stations. Two landing pages, Weather Tools and Crop & IPM Tools, buoy simplified navigation.

NEWA’s models have been modernized via a common model template fostering tool development. Drive the tools with left or button menus: station selection, date of interest, toggle on/off tool elements. Tool elements are grouped in user input, management guide, results table, results graph, and environmental variables table. You can download tool data (CSV) and graphs ( PNG).

Beta testers unanimously praise design and navigation. We are now building out NEWA’s tools and anticipate finishing around May of 2021. NEWA version 3.0 will be launched in 2021 at newa.cornell.edu.

NEWA: Your source for weather and science-driven IPM tools.

Our Impact Statement: Increased use of digital IPM decision support systems like NEWA results in more growers making better pest management decisions with less pesticide input. NEWA’s renewed architecture now delivers geo-specific attribution for appropriate place-based extension outreach on devices as small as phones. Common building blocks used to reconstruct the 35 IPM models into responsive NEWA tools were delineated and pave the way for future growth and easy upgrades. A NEWA dashboard will display what the user wants from the locations they want: easy to set up through NEWA’s user profile. The profile backend will store essential biofix and crop information to drive fast and accurate IPM forecasts for growers. We have developed the required back-end databases and front-end design elements that will heighten positive user experiences when interacting with the responsive NEWA decision support system. To support NEWA data quality, we utilize forecast data and our weather station data editor tool to provision an accurate and reliable decision support system. Improved navigation comes via an interactive NEWA map and streamlined landing page designs that echo our user-experience research. When growers have access to reliable, weather-based, real time NEWA models, IPM practices increase on the farm, preventing plant disease, insect, and crop loss, reducing unnecessary inputs, and minimizing health, economic and environmental risks.

This post was contributed by Juliet Carroll, Fruit IPM Coordinator and past NEWA leader. Contact her at jec3@cornell.edu

Improve your western bean cutworm scouting with NEWA flight estimates

Figure 4. WBC damage to field corn. Photo credit K. Wise, New York State IPM Program.

A western bean cutworm flight completion model is available that uses real-time weather data from any NEWA location in NY and beyond. Released in 2018, this model tracks estimates flight completion so growers can precisely time IPM field corn, sweet corn, and dry bean IPM scouting practices. This project was funding in part by a grant from the New York State Vegetable Research Council.

Western bean cutworm (Striacosta albicosta [Smith]) (WBC) was first discovered in New York State in 2009. It has been expanding its range from its origin in the high plains area of the US over the last 20 years. WBC is an insect pest of corn and dry beans, and can cause significant yield and quality losses to field corn grain. In other parts of the Corn Belt, it has become a pest causing significant economic losses in field corn.

Figure 1. The NEWA Western bean cutworm online model uses real-time weather data from 167 grower-owned weather stations located across New York State. NEWA is an open-access platform and does not charge a membership fee. Accessible at http://bit.ly/2G1U99c

NEWA also generates twice-weekly map updates for New York State using WBC model output from a sub-set of available locations combined with WBC presence/absence data taken from the New York State IPM Program Sweet Corn Pheromone Trap Network Report published weekly throughout the growing season. These maps will be posted to the Your NEWA blog moving forward.

Figure 2. Maps updated twice-weekly during WBC flight emergence periods use the Hanson method2 to estimate flight completion using real-time weather data streamed from 167 physical weather station located across New York State.

Old vs New WBC Prediction Methods

Historical IPM strategies use the ‘Nebraska method’ to estimate 25% WBC flight completion.¹ Field scouting is employed to count egg masses when that threshold is reached, and outcomes are then used to justify management actions. The Nebraska method is a simple base 50°F degree day model that was published in 1976.

In 2015, entomologists at University of Minnesota noted WBC range expansion from native areas to the northern and eastern United States. They questioned the Nebraska method’s accuracy for these regions and published a revised flight prediction model called the ‘Hanson method’.² The Hanson method also uses simple degree day calculations – but uses a different base temperature, adds an upper temperature limit, and begins accumulating earlier in the year (Table 1). 25% emergence is still used as a threshold to begin scouting for egg masses (Table 2).

Table 1. Comparison of old and new model parameters for estimation of WBC flight emergence.

Method	Nebraska	Hanson
Lower threshold	10°C (50°F)	3.3°C (38°F)
Upper threshold	none	23.9°C (75°F)
Calculation method	Simple	Simple
Start	May 1	March 1

Table 2. WBC Estimated flight completion lookup using degree day accumulations based on the Hanson method.

	Hanson method¹
Est. Flight completion	Base 3.3°C^a	Base 38°F^a
1%	1230	2200
5%	1320	2390
10%	1365	2460
15%	1390	2540
20%	1415	2585
25% (scout for egg masses)	1430	2615
30%	1450	2655
40%	1475	2690
50%	1500	2735
60%	1530	2800
70%	1560	2845
80%	1600	2919
90%	1660	3030
100%	2110	3825

^a The Hanson method uses lower and upper thresholds of 3.3C (38F) and 23.9C (75F), respectively.

References

¹ Ahmed, T. R. 1979. Comparison of heat unit accumulation methods for predicting European corn borer and western bean cutworm flights. M.S. thesis, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE.

² Hanson, A. A., R. D. Moon, R. J. Wright, and W. D. Hutchison. 2015. Degree-Day Prediction Models for the Flight Phenology of Western Bean Cutworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Assessed with the Concordance Correlation Coefficient. J. Econ. Entomol. 108: 1728-1738. DOI: 10.1093/jee/tov110

The 2017 NEWA Survey: IPM impact

This is part three in a five-part blog series discussing 2017 NEWA survey results of users and non-users. Download the full report to learn more.

By Dan Olmstead and Julie Carroll

IPM impact

“This [NEWA] is a great tool. Timing is everything, especially with chemicals that don’t last very long. NEWA is very helpful in determining when to spray.”

“NEWA is an indispensable tool for apple growers – used daily in the spring and every few days in the summer. Apple scab and fire blight models are extremely useful – many other models as well.”

– NEWA users who completed the 2017 survey

NEWA is a reliable and trusted source of information among users. All respondents said they would recommend NEWA to other growers. They also said NEWA provides reliable IPM information to support responsible management practices, enhance decision-making, and increase awareness of risks. When asked directly if NEWA helps you to improve timing of pesticide applications, 96% answered yes. Growers use NEWA to improve pesticide application timing, reduce spray applications, and reduce crop loss. These findings were consistent with 2007 survey results (Fig. 1 A and B).

Among NEWA users responding to the survey, more strongly agreed in 2017 that NEWA has a positive impact on IPM practices than did in 2007, though combined results were similar:

77% agreed or strongly agreed that NEWA pest forecast information helps them reduce the number of sprays they apply to control diseases, insects, mites, or weeds, compared to 81% in 2007.
86% agreed or strongly agreed that NEWA pest forecast information alerts them to the risk of pest damage, compared to 90% in 2007.
93% agreed or strongly agreed that NEWA pest forecast information enhances IPM decision-making for their crops, compared to 96% in 2007.
95% agreed or strongly agreed that NEWA pest forecast information improves timing of their spray applications (fungicides, insecticides, miticides, or herbicides), compared to 93% in 2007.

As a direct result of using NEWA pest forecast tools, 75% of growers are saving money on their spray bill. Grower respondents to the 2017 survey estimated annual savings of, on average, $4,329 from reducing pesticide sprays. In 2017, the pest forecast tools on NEWA also helped growers prevent, on average, $33,048 in crop loss annually. Translating costs into per acre savings, 44 respondents reported an average per acre savings of $2,060 annually, through reduced sprays and avoided crop loss.

Up next: Use of NEWA models, tools, and resources