Tag Archives: NYSIPM

Julie Carroll Earns 2019 Excellence in IPM Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contact: Jennifer Grant | Office: 315-787-2353 | jag7@cornell.edu

For photos: http://nysipm.cornell.edu/about/we-give-awards/2018-excellence-ipm-award-winners/juliet-carroll/

Formidable Fruit Doyenne Earns Excellence in IPM Award

GENEVA NY, March 1, 2019: Dr. Juliet Carroll, Fruit IPM Coordinator, received an Excellence in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Award from the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program (NYSIPM) at the Viticulture day of the B.E.V. (Business, Enology, Viticulture) conference in Rochester. NYSIPM develops sustainable ways to manage pests and helps people to use methods that minimize environmental, health and economic risks. The award honors individuals who encourage the adoption of IPM in their businesses, schools, communities, and farms, and who develop new tools and tactics for sharing these practices.

Vital. Invaluable. These are words used to describe Julie Carroll’s IPM contributions by her colleagues. Carroll spearheaded the expansion of NEWA, a website and network which allows growers to understand how the weather will affect fungal and insect pests, and takes the guess work out of their pest management strategy. Carroll ran NEWA for over a decade. Timothy Weigle credits NEWA’s growth in not only weather stations, but also the number of states participating, to Julie’s guidance. Under her leadership NEWA went from 45 weather stations in New York State to over 500 in 12 states. He notes further that her work on improving the user experience with the grape disease and grape berry moth models on NEWA, along with Wayne Wilcox and Greg Loeb, had an enormous impact on the implementation of grape IPM in New York.

Laura McDermott, Regional Extension Specialist in Hudson Falls, NY, noted Dr. Carroll’s passion for integrating pest management strategies, and called her “a determined perfectionist.”

Carroll also led the development of Trac software. Introduced in the early 2000s, the software simplified and digitized pesticide recordkeeping for large and small growers and processors alike. It allows farmers to input the information once, and generate customized reports for different processors. The software also includes reference to “IPM Elements” for grapes and other crops—a tool that helps growers assess their pest management practices. Grape processors across the state, including Constellation Brands, use TracGrape’s reports for their pesticide reporting requirements. Carroll built Trac software for five fruit crops, and partnered with a colleague to create TracTurfgrass for golf, lawns, sports fields and sod farms.

Luke Haggerty, of Constellation Brands, calls Carroll’s TracGrape software “a true breakthrough” in record keeping. As a Grower Relations rep for Constellation, he relies on information provided by NEWA: “Julie has always been very proactive in developing and delivering the products needed for our growers to produce grapes in an environmentally and economically sustainable way.”

Tim Martinson, Cornell Cooperative Extension Viticulture specialist, noted, “IPM is built on information and decision-making tools. Juliet has built TracGrape and NEWA into useful, practical tools for growers.”

Dr. Carroll also co-edited Organic Production and IPM Guides for grapes and several berry crops, and has regularly presented at Lake Erie Regional Grape Growers’ conferences and Coffee Pot meetings. She has conducted research on devastating pests such as the Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD)—investigating whether hungry hummingbirds can provide meaningful control. Dr. Carroll has also chaired the Northeast IPM SWD working groups for the last decade, bringing research scientists, growers, industry reps, and extension educators from across the region together to help find solutions. Carroll has also helped fruit growers with bird management. Tim Weigle noted that her bird-scaring tactics have saved everyone a lot of money and are more popular than the traditional neighbor-alienating air cannon.

Learn more about Integrated Pest Management at nysipm.cornell.edu.

Canny Climatologist Codes his Way to Excellence in IPM Award

Media contact: Juliet E. Carroll | Office: 315-787-2430 | jec3@cornell.edu

For photos: nysipm.cornell.edu/about/we-give-awards/2018-excellence-ipm-award-winners/keith-eggleston/

GENEVA NY, January 17, 2019: Keith Eggleston, a climatologist with the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) received an Excellence in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Award from the New York State Integrated Pest Management Program (NYSIPM) at the Empire State Producers’ Expo in Syracuse. NYSIPM develops sustainable ways to manage pests and helps people to use methods that minimize environmental, health and economic risks. The award honors individuals who encourage the adoption of IPM in their businesses, schools, communities, and farms, and who develop new tools and tactics for sharing these practices.

Begun in 1995 by NYSIPM, the Network for Environment and Weather App’s (NEWA) delivers weather information from farm-based weather stations from Minnesota to New Hampshire to North Carolina, and feeds it into more than 40 pest forecasting and crop production tools. NEWA’s weather data summaries and IPM forecasts give farmers the best information to make scientifically based decisions about how to best manage pests. NEWA is highly valued by New York fruit and vegetable growers—largely thanks to Eggleston’s diligence and expertise.

How did Eggleston help? He wrote the code for the IPM forecast models on NEWA’s website, newa.cornell.edu. Successful? Yes! These IPM tools work so well that NEWA expanded from around 40 to over 600 weather stations and from one state to 14. The pest forecasts help farmers in NY and other states predict when pests might strike and how severe that strike might be—saving them both from spraying and from losing sleep.

Dan Olmstead, NEWA Coordinator, notes that “Keith’s understanding of programming languages, weather, climate, and the NEWA users themselves serves as a foundation for our collaborative success.”

Eggleston’s colleagues admire his insights into the nuances of climate data, and his eternal vigilance regarding bug fixes, stalled models, and metadata rescue. They have referred to him as a ‘miracle worker’ and ‘tech guru’. Put more simply: Eggleston makes sure that users are happy and NEWA data and model outputs are of the highest quality.

Eggleston has a unique perspective on agriculture—his father was a Vocational Ag teacher and FFA Advisor; he himself a member of the agricultural fraternity, Alpha Zeta, at Cornell University. “I have always had an affinity for agriculture and have found it very satisfying to be able to help develop models that will be useful in the farming community,” he said.

Olmstead added, “Keith’s real strength comes from his endless patience, calm thinking, collaborative spirit, and tenacity—all of which creates synergy… NEWA continues to grow rapidly because the tools Keith built stand the test of time and end-user scrutiny.”

Art DeGaetano, director of the NRCC, characterized Eggleston as the glue that connects NEWA and NRCC. He said, “Among the scientists involved with NEWA, Keith is the trusted voice …concerning how a model should be implemented, the design of the model, or even the proper data to use, Keith’s respectful expertise is the catalyst for reaching common ground and achieving excellence.”

Learn more about Integrated Pest Management at nysipm.cornell.edu.

Using NEWA to access historical data

Did you know NEWA can load past weather data into your favorite online tool at newa.cornell.edu? It’s the dead of winter which is a perfect time to look back at the 2017 growing season. Read this article to learn more about historical data access using NEWA.

Historical data access | Historical data from inactive stations | Historical data summary

NEWA historical data access

The NEWA website is popular because real-time weather data provide short-term risk assessments during the growing season. But, have you ever looked back and asked yourself what went right or wrong? NEWA tools can also be used to follow insect or disease risk historically through a period of time. You can access this feature using any model or tool available on the NEWA website.

Instructions

From the ‘Weather Data,’ ‘Pest Forecasts,’ or ‘Crop Management’ dropdown lists in the website navigation bar, select your model of interest.
 Select your pest or disease, State, and Weather station and historical Accumulation end date.
View the historical output.
 

NEWA historical data access from ‘Inactive’ Stations

Every once in a while, we get a question about historical data from an ‘inactive’ station, which is a NEWA location that no longer transmits to the website. Historical weather data can still be accessed using the hourly or daily weather summary tools.

Instructions

From the ‘Weather Data’ dropdown list in the website navigation bar, select Hourly Data or Daily Summary.
Scroll to the bottom of available weather stations and find a station of interest.
Choose a month and year from the past.
Get your report.

Historical data access summary

This table summarizes the availability of NEWA models and tools with ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ stations on NEWA. Follow the links to view tools and resources at the NEWA website.

Category Crop Model type Model From active stations From inactive stations
Fruit Apple Diseases Apple scab  YES NO
Fire Blight YES NO
Insects Apple Maggot YES NO
Codling Moth YES NO
Oriental Fruit Moth YES NO
Obliquebanded Leafroller YES NO
Plum Curculio YES NO
San Jose Scale YES NO
Spotted Tentiform Leafminer YES NO
Crop Management carbohydrate thinning model YES NO
Irrigation model YES NO
Grape Diseases Phomopsis YES NO
Powdery Mildew YES NO
Black Rot YES NO
Downy Mildew YES NO
Insects Grape Berry Moth YES NO
Vegetable Cabbage Insects Cabbage Maggot YES NO
Onion Diseases Botrytis YES NO
Downy Mildew YES NO
Purple Blotch YES NO
Insects Onion Maggot YES NO
Potato Diseases Early Blight YES NO
Late Blight YES NO
Tomato Diseases Early Blight, Septoria, Anthracnose YES NO
Late Blight YES NO
Weather Summaries Hourly YES YES
Daily YES YES
 Degree Days Summaries Monthly YES NO
 Calculator  YES NO