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in overall acreage owned or farmed, or in total acres of apples farmed, 

 although there was a slight tendency for non-IPM growers to be "clumped" in 

 the middle whereas IPM growers might either be very small (i.e., less than 5 

 acres) or very large (i.e., over 150 acres). Responses to questions about 

 farm value and the gross value of the annual crop also showed little dif- 

 ference between the two groups; however, a greater fraction of IPM growers 

 (52%) than non-IPM growers {k2%) derived more than 75 percent of their 

 income from the farm. 



Farm Practices and Pesticide Use Problems 



Looking at Table 1, for example, it is clear that an iPM grower was 

 much more likely to use sticky spheres for apple maggot fly detection and a 

 leaf wetness machine for the determination of an apple scab infection 

 period, and somewhat more likely to use pheromone traps and alternate row 



Table 1. How often do you use the following methods of pest control? 



IPM Growers Non-IPM Growers 



Pheromone traps 37.8* 31 .6* 



Sticky spheres 65.3 ^5.0 



Leaf wetness machine 24.5 10.2 



Alternate row sprays 57.8 h2.] 



Perimeter-only sprays 26.7 27.5 



Recommendations from UMass Extension 100.0 92.7 



Pest Alert on Code-A-Phone 57.7 60.9 



Pest Alert message by mail 97.8 95.0 



*Percentage of respondents who answered "frequently" or "sometimes". 



sprays than a non-IPM grower. The two groups were about equally likely (or 

 unlikely) to use perimeter-only sprays, and in the other 3 categories they 

 were also quite similar, an indication that a sizable percentage of the 

 state's growers used Extension-generated pest management information. As 

 mentioned above, this increased use of pest management materials correlated 

 well with the use of scouting as an IPM criterion. 



Since the philosophy and techniques of Integrated Pest Management have 

 often been presented at grower meetings, we next looked to see whether IPM 

 growers were more likely to attend these meetings. In fact, a greater per- 

 centage of IPM growers attended afternoon and twilight meetings (3^%) and 

 the annual summer meeting of the Mass. Fruit Growers' Association (7'*^)> 

 than non-IPM growers (82^ and 60%, respectively). About 75^ of the growers 

 in both groups attended the annual New England Fruit Meetings. 



However, an interesting difference between the two groups occured in 

 their awareness of the effective use of pesticides, as illustrated in Table 

 2. Both groups were equally likely to calibrate at least once per season, 

 but IPM growers were almost 3 times more likely to calibrate their sprayer 



