The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has allocated more than $500,000 in the sixth funding cycle of the Proactive Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Solutions grant program.
The project, expected to last a little more than two years, will focus on developing and refining a proactive, low-impact control program for the South American palm weevil — an invasive pest not yet present in California's agricultural regions.
“This project is about building a solution now for a pest that we know is knocking on the door for our date palm farmers — and it’s about looking first for solutions that reduce the need for pesticide use,” CDFA Secretary Karen Ross said in a release.
Mark Hoddle will lead the project at UC Riverside; the effort focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of the Attract and Kill strategy, utilizing pheromone-baited traps to attract and eliminate the South American palm weevil.
This proactive IPM initiative aims to provide growers with a sustainable and reduced-insecticide-use control tool, ready for swift deployment by commercial date producers. The goal is to implement this strategy in the Coachella Valley before the pest establishes itself in date production areas.
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“By supporting the development of management tools for highly invasive pests before they arrive in California or spread within the state, the innovative CDFA Proactive IPM program is bolstering the biosecurity preparedness of California into the future,” Brian Hogg, a research entomologist at the Invasive Species and Pollinator Health Research Unit for USDA's Agricultural Research Service, said.
The Proactive IPM Solutions Program, overseen by CDFA's Office of Pesticide Consultation and Analysis, is designed to proactively identify potential exotic pests that may enter California or spread from localized populations.
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