Apr 14, 2016

SWD survey seeks grower responses

A new survey is seeking responses from growers regarding spotted wing drosophila (SWD) management. The survey is part of the “Sustainable Spotted Wind Dosophila Management for U.S. Fruit Crops” project, funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

“SWD has been a huge pest for the tart and sweet cherry industries,” said Phil Korson, Cherry Marketing Institute president and an industry stakeholder advisor on the grant funding the SWD project. “But each year we’re seeing a bigger and better challenge. This is just a baseline data survey that growers can take to establish where we’re at.”

This five-year project is developing national research and extension projects to minimize the impacts of SWD. They include new management tactics and programs, expanded pesticide registrations for SWD, and information and training on SWD for growers, extension agents, and others.

The project is collecting information on the impacts of SWD on small fruit growers, current management practices and preferences, and requirements for better management of SWD.

The research group will follow up with more surveys down the road while research on different aspects of SWD will continue to go on throughout the U.S., Korson said.

“Our ultimate goal is to develop an IPM program to combat this pest and/or biocontrols that would work,” Korson said. “We have a lot to do at the grower level to get a step ahead.”

Participation is voluntary, and the survey does not collect personally identifying information, and the data will only be analyzed and reported in aggregate form.

The survey is available online and in paper version.

For more information or to access the survey, visit survey.ncsu.edu/swd. For questions, contact Hannah Burack at [email protected] or Jean-Jacques Dubois at [email protected].