If 2020 wasn’t bad enough already, the stars seem to be aligning for New Hampshire’s first BMSB outbreak in fall-harvested fruit crops. Anna takes a break from stopping people on the street to warn them and talks to some BMSB experts in this multi-part series on monitoring and control of this invasive stinker.

If 2020 wasn’t bad enough already, the stars seem to be aligning for New Hampshire’s first brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) outbreak in fall-harvested fruit crops. Anna takes a break from stopping people on the street to warn them and talks to some BMSB experts in this multi-part series on monitoring and control of this invasive stinker.

Anna reports on her conclusions from a summer project funded by the New Hampshire Department of Ag & Markets IPM Program and catches up with some old friends from Cornell, Juliet Carroll of NYIPM, and Steve Hesler of the Loeb Lab at Cornell’s AgriTech campus. Monitoring SWD stinks, both literally and figuratively, but Julie and Steve will help convince you that it’s an important part of managing small fruit crops.

Anna seeks the help of her neighborhood plant pathology experts, directors of the plant diagnostic clinics at UVM & UNH Ann Hazelrigg of UVM & Cheryl Smith of UNH, to break down IPM of mummyberry, a fungal disease affecting blueberry. Things get complicated as we attempt to integrate pollinator protection into our theoretical IPM program. There is a silver lining in the potential solution, a little help from work done by Rufus Isaacs, MSU.

Anna talks codling moth management with Peter Jentsch from the Hudson Valley Research Lab and they get down to the straight dope on what to do and when to do it.

Brown marmorated stinkbug (BMSB) is an invasive insect species that is a major agricultural pests in many parts of the US but only occurs at low numbers in New Hampshire. Anna wants to know if BMSB problems are in our future and when we should freak out? She asks for some advice from Rob Morison (USDA-ARS), Daniel Frank (WVU), and Anne Nielsen (Rutgers). Spoiler alert: the answer is not yet…

Anna wonders aloud if we are currently in a golden age of striped cucumber beetle research and finds out about what’s going on down in South Carolina in the Blubaugh lab of Clemson University.

Anna dwells on the concept of acceptable levels of pests and talks to PhD student, Kadie Britt of Virginia Tech, about establishing pest thresholds in a new crop, industrial hemp.

Anna talks with fellow clearwing moth enthusiast, Dr. Daniel Frank of West Virginia University, about non-toxic management options for peach tree borers.

Anna discusses a century of plum curculio research with Doug Pfeiffer (Virginia Tech) and Anne Nielsen (Rutgers University), and how sweet we have in up here in New England compared to more southern regions.

Anna takes a break from murder and mayhem to chat with pollinator biologist, Frank Drummond of the University of Maine, about a native crop and a native pollinator complex.

Anna celebrates Mother’s Day by covering the history of cabbage maggot research, and our efforts to interfere with onion maggot maternal choice. She chats with follow entomologist, Brian Nault of Cornell University, about the current state of commercial onion maggot IPM.

Identifying and monitoring pests is the first step in any IPM approach.