Project Number: 6615-22000-026-13
Project Type: General Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Oct 01, 2011
End Date: Jul 31, 2014

Objective:
To develop novel sustainable programs to manage thrips and thrips vectored tomato spotted wilt virus, one of the key pest complexes of vegetable crops in the southern USA, and deliver information to end-users.

Approach:
The project will foster adoption of effective practices by providing readily accessible information to growers, commodity groups and other stakeholders. Field station and on-farm trials will provide sites where we will host demonstrations to compare the different cropping systems. We will develop plans with cooperating growers for them to continue with successful cropping systems, which should help facilitate wider adoption of these programs. To further promote awareness to growers, information will be delivered at appropriate commodity group and other stakeholder meetings (e.g., NRCS, Florida Small Farms, Florida Organic Growers). In addition, information will be published in grower oriented magazines, (e.g., Southeast Farm Press, Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Grower News, Florida Grower). Information will be posted on the currently established websites of each institution (IPM Florida: ipm.ifas.ufl.edu, smallfarms.ifas.ufl.edu; University of Georgia: http://www.tswv.org; and ARS: www.ars.usda.gov/saa/cmave/ibbru).