1 995Tree-f ruit Survey: Insect Management 



Ronald J. Prokopy, Roberta Szala, and William M. Coli 

 University of Massachusetts 



As revealed in a preceding article on the 1995 

 Tree-fruit Survey, growers expressed the opinion 

 that insect pest management, like disease pest man- 

 agement and horticultural management, ought to 

 receive increased emphasis relative to our current 

 efforts in these areas. In this article, we first de- 

 scribe survey results of grower ranking of current 

 extension efforts most beneficial to insect pest man- 

 agement decisions. We then present grower rank- 

 ing of insects that should receive priority in terms 

 of our future research efforts on improved chemical 

 control and improved biologically-based control. 



Current Extension Efforts 



As revealed in Table 1, the annual ATeu; England 

 Apple Pest Management Guide and the annual 18 

 weekly pest alert messages were considered by "all" 



growers (that is, growers across all farm sizes) to be 

 the most beneficial of all extension efforts in affect- 

 ing insect pest management decisions. These were 

 closely followed by the Annual March Message. 

 Somewhat further down the list, in descending or- 

 der of expressed value, were the annual twilight 

 meetings at growers orchards, personal visits by a 

 member of the extension team to a grower's orchard, 

 issues of Fruit Notes, the biannual Southern New 

 England Peach, Pear and Plum Pest Management 

 Guide, and the Tree Fruit Newsletter, Growers hav- 

 ing large farms expressed essentially the same or- 

 der of priority as "all" growers did. Growers having 

 medium-size farms gave comparatively higher rank- 

 ing to the Annual March Message and Fruit Notes, 

 whereas growers having small or very small farms 

 gave comparatively higher ranking to the weekly 

 pest alert messages. 



10 



Fruit Notes, Summer, 1996 



