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Our project objectives are: (1) define yield-density relationships & other key economic information to improve field-level control systems in upland and Pima cottons, vegetable and vegetable seed crops, chile peppers, eggplant, dry beans, and burgeoning new crops, lesquerella and guayule; (2) expand and replace limited and broadly toxic control options through evaluation and demonstration of reduced-risk chemistries for Lygus control and for conservation of key natural enemies; (3) develop spatially-explicit statistical and simulation models of Lygus source-sink relationships and movement potential to identify opportunities for strategic planting and coordinated crop & pest management; and (4) develop a coordinated extension program that includes on-farm demonstration and stakeholder-engaged research, organized outreach activities as well as an innovative gaming simulation training for growers around a theme of coordinated, cross-commodity practices, risk avoidance, and areawide Lygus suppression through improved field practices and landscape manipulation.
Non-Technical Summary: Further progress in IPM and opportunities to better manage risk (economic, environmental and human health) are now largely rooted in our ability to better manage the agroecosystem overall. There is a major need to develop innovative, ecologically-based areawide systems of management, especially for mobile, multicrop pests like Lygus spp., which can undermine gains in IPM and stifle new opportunities by requiring broadly toxic, disruptive inputs for control. Our goal is to develop, improve and deliver sustainable, areawide management strategies for Lygus in the Western agricultural landscape and reduce all forms of risk. <P> Approach: Objective 1: Field experiments will be conducted in multiple crops/locations to address specific crop-Lygus interactions. Nominal thresholds, established thresholds and other parameters will be tested and refined. Plots will be as large as feasible given resource and space limitations, but recent work in AZ has shown excellent ability to delineate Lygus effects on plots as small as 6-12 rows x 30 ft. Lygus density and crop response (yield and quality) will be measured with appropriate controls in place at each site for each crop. Objective 2: Field efficacy trials with appropriate controls and replication will be the principal approach. Selectivity experiments will be performed on semi-commercial size plots, when feasible, to minimize inter-plot interference on non-target species. A suite of natural enemies will be evaluated under field conditions to determine any negative impacts of candidate chemistry. We will use multivariate canonical analyses and principal response curves to assess impact on natural enemy communities. Objective 3: The team will have synergistic interactions in collection of regional Lygus information and developing both statistical and simulation models useful for describing, predicting, and teaching about Lygus distributions across a multi-crop landscape. Tethered and untethered flight measurement systems will be used in laboratory tests of Lygus adults to determine their flight behavior under a range of environmental conditions. Also, using proteins as markers and ELISA detection systems, we will evaluate Lygus (and natural enemy) movement out of putative overwintering and other source sites using protein mark / recapture approach. These hypothesis-testing approaches will feed into the spatially-explicit, statistical (regression) and simulation approaches, which will in turn guide further hypothesis-testing. Objective 4: Dissemination of project information will be accomplished using standard procedures for the Extension PDs (through workshops, Extension meetings, focus & advisory groups, field days, bulletins, and other written media, websites and email alerts). The 2nd and 3rd International Symposia for Lygus Biology and Management will be used, respectively, to convene a planning session for project personnel and key stakeholders prior to the first full season (2007), and to conduct a capstone session highlight the outcomes, deliverables, and success stories from this proposal and to continue dissemination of results to stakeholders (2009). We will conduct trainings using a novel gaming simulation constructed based on the principals of Lygus movement and management as determined in this project. The game will teach growers the value of coordinated decision-making for optimal economic outcomes. Growers will select and arrange crops spatially on their virtual farm without knowing what their virtual neighbors are planting. The interactive simulation will return information on risks of Lygus losses and overall profitability. Then producers will communicate with each other to negotiate a crop mix that could increase profits for the whole region.