I used to play an old very challenging video game with my friends when I was younger. The object was to destroy huge round starships that could come at you from any direction in space with great speed. As with most of these types of games, without experience you succumb to the computer with ease. At some point we were all firing in three dimensions hoping to cause some damage to the starship before it got into visual range, which normally meant you were about to lose the game. With experience it became easy to determine which direction the starship was coming from and what it would take to slow it down and incapacitate it. I'm sure none of you have had this kind of experience with a video game - insert smiley face here.

Unfortunately, that's how I have seen some of the pest management practices in ornamental plant production, shooting in all directions and covering everything in sight, regardless of whether there is a pest present or not and as often as possible. Why? Mostly it's for peace of mind and the knowledge that if you treat, there is the potential assurance that there won't be any pests when you are done. Unfortunately that practice is old school and has many pitfalls. In addition, the trend to reduce pesticide use is not going away. The Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) launched a grant program in 1998 specifically with pesticide reduction in mind. The DPR has funded more than 200 projects, totaling approximately $10 million to that end.

I wanted to remind you of some work from the past that was completed by three Farm Advisors (Steve Tjosvold, Julie Newman, and Karen Robb) that clearly demonstrated that a reduction in pesticide use in ornamental production is possible without a major change in production. The project demonstrated that an effective monitoring program and good decision making significantly reduced costs and pesticide use. For a copy of the report, see the following web site: http://www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/pestmgt/grants/97-98/finlrpts/97-0224.pdf. The bottom line in much of the report is that pesticide reduction and labor savings were very good.

The data is summarized from the report. Total Cost Savings includes other parts of the fully integrated pest management program, which includes release of beneficial, etc.

 The advantages to an effective monitoring program and the reduction in pesticide use can never be understated. They are more environmentally friendly and safer for workers, consumers and the community at large.

As the report summarizes, costs related to pest management were usually significantly reduced when good scouting was employed, and the best results were realized when growers and others involved in plant management in the nursery worked together with the scout as a team. In addition, those nurseries that used spot application of pesticides (vs. spraying large areas in the greenhouse or field) and focused on the use of directed sprays (vs. spraying whole plant canopies) so that non-target areas were not included in the application, achieved the greatest reduction in pesticide use and economic savings.

Recently I have begun to revive that work and encourage more monitoring in the industry and train staff to be effective scouts. This work is in cooperation with the Center for Applied Horticultural Research (CfAHR), where the Director, Lucia Villavicencio, along with my staff (Irma DeBonis) has been instrumental in providing the Spanish translation of the work. Future programs offered by UC Cooperative Extension and CfAHR that emphasize monitoring in ornamental plant production will be announced soon via email from my office or from the Center.