Orchard Pest Management Field Day Scheduled May 28 at Prosser

PULLMAN, Wash. – Apple growers will learn of new integrated pest management practices to help them develop sustainable and effective pest management programs in the wake of the phase out of azinphos-methly at a Pest Management Transition Project field day scheduled at 3 p.m., Thursday, May 28, at Oasis Farms/C&M Orchards on West Evans Road, northeast of Prosser.

This year’s field day will feature revolving stations with active demonstrations or exhibits and experts on hand to answer questions about IPM strategies; monitoring techniques and tools; identification and monitoring of natural enemies; and sprayer efficiency. Sprayer calibration using a patternator to determine vertical distribution of sprayer output will be demonstrated at each field day.

This field day is the first of four scheduled during May and June. The others are at Gebbers Farms near Brewster on June 3; at the Double S. Orchards near Quincy on June 10, and at the Marquez Farms near Wapato on June 11.

Spanish translation will be available at each field day.

For up-to-date information about the field days plus map links to the field day sites, visit the Pest Management Transition Project Web site at: http://pmtp.wsu.edu/tours.html. If you have questions, call (509) 663-8181 or send an email to pmtp.info@wsu.edu.

The field days are sponsored by the Pest Management Transition Project, an outreach program launched in 2007 to help growers move from an AZM-based pest management program to a program that is built on monitoring, pheromone technologies, information management and new chemistries.

-30-