Cheryl Boyer

This proposal addresses four essential IPM emphasis areas, including: IPM implementation in 1) Agronomic Crops, 2) Communities, 3) Specialty Crops, and 4) IPM Education for Pesticide Applicators. This proposal focuses on developing an integrated system that broadens access to critical information in agricultural and horticultural commodities, through two goals: (1) improving data access to better inform pest management decisions in agricultural and horticultural commodities, and (2) increasing awareness of and access to our IPM program and its important outputs for stakeholders. Emphasis area 1 activities focus on the continued expansion of a web-based application (iWheat) to incorporate multidisciplinary inputs and additional cropping systems, (MyFields), in order to push tailored crop management information to end-users. Emphasis area 2 focuses on the development of workshops for garden center workers, enhanced online and face-to-face Master Gardener training, and data mining of historical queries to prioritize new informational materials. Emphasis area 3 activities focus on a hands-on training for nursery and greenhouse growers, the establishment of regular communications with producers, and continued development of the NurseryWorks conference.Lastly, emphasis area 4 efforts focus on development of online training programs for training pesticide applicators. Project impact will be assessed using carefully designed assessments administered by KSU Office of Innovation and Evaluation to document stakeholder adoption and behavior change in response to trainings and tools.