Seen here an adult Colorado potato beetle enjoys feeding on a potato plant. Adults and larvae eagerly consume potato foliage but ARS scientists are working hard to ruin their next meal.
Apples are an all-American success story-each of us eats more than 19 pounds of them annually. Thanks to fruit-breeding research, we're able to enjoy more productive, healthy, and flavorful new varieties every year. And we're collecting and preserving the world's bounty of apple genestock, so that the apples of tomorrow may be even sweeter crunchier, and better than ever.
The mission of the IR-4 Project is to facilitate regulatory approval of sustainable pest management technology for specialty crops and specialty uses to promote public well being. In this picture an IR-4 technician at the Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research Laboratory checks on an experiment.
The mission of the Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research Unit (TTFVRU) located in Wapato, Washington, is to seek new and more effective means to control insect pests of tree fruit and vegetable crops... Read the rest of our Mission Statement here: Temperate Tree Fruit and Vegetable Research Laboratory
Mission
The mission of the Fruit and Vegetable Insect Research Unit located near Wapato in Yakima County, Washington is to seek new and more effective means to control insect pests of temperate tree fruit and vegetable crops. Approaches include manipulation of insect behavior, development of biological control, and other biointensive methods for insect management, and the expansion of our fundamental knowledge and understanding of the major pests and the development of novel approaches to incorporate into pest management programs. Emphasized are the development of novel approaches, techniques, and technologies for pest management systems that will reduce use of chemical pesticides. These include semiochemicals, and parasites, predators, and pathogens of insect pests. Pests of primary concern are pear psylla, codling moth, apple maggot, and leafrollers on apple and pear, cherry fruit fly, and spotted wing drosophila on cherries, and potato psyllid, beet leafhopper, green peach aphid, and wireworms on potato. Treatments and strategies are developed to meet quarantine restrictions on tree fruits for export thus increasing exports of fruits and other agricultural commodities. As part of the IR-4 minor use program, studies continue to determine efficacy of insecticides and pesticide residues.People
