Tag: biocontrols conference

Botanical Insecticides Offer More Flexibility Than You Might Think

March 20, 2017

Dr. Murray IsmanBotanical insecticides based on plant essential oils or plant extracts have been around forever. But growers are using them in modern ways that offer more flexibility and control over a pest management program.

Dr. Murray B. Isman, Professor (Entomology/Toxicology) at the University of British Columbia, has been focusing research on botanical insecticides and shared some of the developments he’s seeing at the recent Biocontrols USA West 2017 Conference & Expo.

We spoke with Dr. Isman about some of the advances with these products and how you can apply them in your own production next season.

Q: Why do you think you’re seeing more adoption of some of the botanical insecticides among growers now?

Isman: More growers appear to be adopting botanical insecticides in part because the arsenal of conventional crop protectants is being progressively whittled down by regulatory actions. While there are new conventional products being brought to market, their numbers are well down from a couple of decades ago, and far fewer in comparison to the number of products withdrawn from the marketplace. Another factor is that the younger generation of growers are better educated — therefore more willing to try alternative products and technologies — and more concerned with long-term sustainability of their livelihoods and the environment.

Q: What are some of the direct benefits botanical products provide in comparison to other types of materials?

Isman: Botanicals are certainly not a panacea for crop protection, but they do offer minimal, if any, harvest restrictions, fewer other restrictions on use, and generally good compatibility with biocontrols. They are also compatible with other pest management products and can be used as tank mixes or in rotation, so they offer a lot of flexibility.

Q: How are some of the newer botanical insecticides different from past materials, and how are growers using them?

Isman: The products based on essential oils provide rapid contact action, but with the advantage of residual action that is not based on toxicity but on behavioral effects on pests. In short, they can provide protection for days or weeks after their immediate effect has diminished because they continue to repel or deter pests from recolonizing crops plants and/or laying eggs. In some pest/crop combinations we have seen good residual action, but without the problematic pesticide residues associated with conventional insecticides.

Q: What was one of the more unexpected topics for attendees you covered during the session?

Isman: Unlike most conventional pesticides that smell awful, most of the essential oil-based products actually smell quite pleasant! On a more serious note, most botanicals are based on natural mixtures rather than a single bioactive chemical. As such, the probability of insect populations developing resistance is tiny relative to the probability with a conventional insecticide or even a microbial like Bt.

To get more information about the recent Biocontrols USA West event or the Biocontrols Conference & Expo Series for 2017, visit BiocontrolsConference.com.

How To Get Biocontrol Buy-In At Your Operation

March 13, 2017

Kyle Peterson, Production Manager at Fessler Nursery in Woodburn, OR, wears a number of hats in his job. He selects, schedules, and keeps track of crops, but also fills in wherever he needs to in order to ensure the company is running efficiently and profitably. Sometimes those duties entail getting buy-in from his bosses, as well as his customers, on the use of a new biocontrol tool.

Peterson shared his firsthand experience and talked about some additional aspects of running a successful biological program and how they can be applied to business in general, creating more profit and higher sales at the recent Biocontrols USA West 2017 Conference and Expo:

Q: What’s the most common roadblock you hear about or maybe have experienced yourself in getting the right people to buy in to allow you to implement a new biocontrol tool or program?

Peterson: There are several roadblocks that come up with regard to biocontrol, from lack of knowledge to lack of belief. Thankfully, as this part of the industry grows, these problems are diminishing. Every trade show I attend seems to have more and more seminars concentrating on biocontrol, and every one of them is packed with participants that are eager to learn. The most common challenge that I have come across is the “cost” question. It always comes back to the bottom line. “How expensive will this be?” When paired with a lack of knowledge or faith, this can become an almost insurmountable challenge.

Q: What’s the best strategy you’ve come up with to overcome those objections?

Peterson: This can be a difficult objection to overcome depending on just how set in their ways the leadership of the company is. If you just compare cost of biocontrol versus a conventional pesticide, you may miss your target. The key is to think outside of the box and to weigh in all the factors that are part of the big picture, which include things like labor expense, reentry intervals, and efficacy to name a few. Once you calculate these additional factors into your cost equation, you can develop a more balanced comparison that gives you a better opportunity to convince skeptics.

Q: How have you been able to use your biocontrols program at Fessler as a marketing tool for potential customers?

Peterson: I think we have really only just scratched the surface of the true potential for marketing based on use of biocontrol here at Fessler Nursery. A hot topic in our industry, and especially here in the Northwest, has been the use of chemicals that are harmful to pollinators. Millennials are an emerging and growing part of our customer base and they have an acute interest in sustainability and the environment. Our use of biocontrol has proven to be an excellent conversation piece with this group and has helped create both interest and loyalty in our products. We have been able to pass this strategy along to our wholesale customers to produce shared value for everyone involved in the supply chain.

To learn more about the Biocontrols USA West event, as well as upcoming events in the Biocontrols Conference & Expo Series, visit BiocontrolsConference.com.

The Potential of Biocontrol in Cannabis

February 1, 2017
Robert Starnes, University of California Davis
Robert Starnes, University of California Davis

The accelerating legalization of cannabis around the U.S. is providing new opportunity in the form of an alternative crop, and just as much uncertainty about what kind of crop protection can be used to grow it. We asked Robert Starnes, Senior Superintendent of Agriculture at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) in the Department of Entomology and President of Shale Peak Horticulture, for his thoughts on where biocontrol fits for cannabis growers.

Q: What’s the current situation with available pest control materials in cannabis crops?
Starnes: Cannabis is in a gray area regarding chemical pest management in states where it is legal as a medicinal or recreational crop. As growers receive state and/or county permits to grow cannabis, they must also register with their county ag commissioners. Many growers don’t realize all the rules and regulations that accompany this. In California, spray applicators need a Qualified Applicator License/Qualified Applicator Certification from the Department of Pesticide Regulation. Any grower spraying a commercial crop with a registered insecticide, biopesticide, fungicide, or herbicide must have one of these licenses. Growers must also submit a monthly use report, where inappropriate pesticides would be questioned.

There are, however, a few exceptions in California. Cannabis growers are allowed to spray pesticides that contain an active ingredient exempt from residue-tolerance requirements, and are registered and labeled for a use that is broad enough to include use on cannabis (unspecified green plants) or exempt from registration requirements as a minimum risk pesticide under FIFRA.

Q: Why are biocontrols important tools to add to that mix?
Starnes: The best pest management option for cannabis is biological control. Using predatory mites and insects to control pests doesn’t require permits or monthly use reporting. Also, insects will never develop resistance to being eaten or parasitized.

Spraying a plant with any pesticide or biopesticide will leave a residue, and it’s becoming common practice to test the final cannabis product for residues. If these products test positive they can be rejected from dispensaries. Some dispensaries set their own rules for residues, but the government may soon regulate which products are acceptable. Even if a product is generally regarded as safe but banned in cannabis use, residues will be discovered and the product rejected for sale. Biocontrol leaves no residue and isn’t regulated in terms of final sale.

Our strategy at Shale Peak Horticulture is to design a preventative biocontrol release program to build a standing army of predators. We feed our predatory mites an artificial diet of Ephestia sp. eggs mixed with Artemia sp. cysts (eggs) in the cannabis crop. This keeps the predatory mites in the crop, ready for the pests to arrive.

Q: What’s the current legal status of biopesticides with regard to use in cannabis crops?
Starnes: It is the same as conventional pesticides for cannabis use: there are no registered products specifically for use directly on cannabis. Some states have a list of legal products they allow, while most haven’t produced much information for cannabis growers. Basically, all registered pesticides and biopesticides are illegal to use on cannabis unless exempted by your state. Your state regulations can be found easily online.

Q: How can cannabis growers learn to use biocontrols?
Starnes: Work with your county ag commissioner. They can help you understand which products are legal or illegal to use.

Integrated Pest Management is a complex system. Seek out a biocontrol specialist for advice and help on understanding which organisms will work in your location. Some biocontrols work better at higher temperatures, others at lower temperatures. The same applies to relative humidity. Most biocontrol companies have staff to advise you on which products to use based on the pest pressure you’re experiencing. There are also consultants you can hire to help scout your crop for pests and make recommendations on which biocontrol agent will work for you.

Robert Starnes ([email protected]) is a Senior Superintendent of Agriculture at UC Davis in the Department of Entomology, where he conducts research on integrated pest management and remote sensing in agriculture, and President of Shale Peak Horticulture, which offers biocontrol pest management solutions to cannabis growers.

Rethinking Biocontrol With Bio-Brews

February 1, 2017
Tom Costamagna, American Color
Tom Costamagna, American Color

Tom Costamagna, Director of Growing at American Color, an ornamental crops producer in Orange, VA, is anything but orthodox in his approach to pest and disease control, yet he gets results. With more than a decade of experience with biocontrols and biopesticides to back him up, he prefers to complement what growers are already doing — spraying. He’s just changing what they are applying.

Enhancing Plant Health and Quality

Costamagna focuses on microbials and entomopathogenic fungi. He uses bio-brews, which are mixtures of regenerative microorganisms (also known as efficient microorganisms or EM) that occur freely in nature.

A bio-brew is not a pesticide, but rather a biostimulant, which activates the natural processes of plants, benefiting nutrient use efficiency and/or tolerance to abiotic stress. Biostimulants are not fertilizers or pesticides, as they work regardless of nutrient content in products and do not have any direct actions against pests or diseases. Instead, they act on the plants’ vigor, rounding out crop nutrition and crop protection by working in synergy with them.

Inundative Control: A New Approach

Costamagna prefers to think of using bio-brews as an inundative or full immersion approach, which he takes due to plant purchasers with little to no tolerance for the presence of pests and the damage they cause.

To achieve inundative control, Costamagna says he recommends calendar spraying to provide ample CFUs (colony forming units) of biocontrol/biopesticide agents like nematodes and entomopathogenic fungi or bacteria. Regular applications of bio-brews must start at the plug and liner stage and continue through shipping to ensure pest populations are low to nonexistent.

Cost effective bio-brews work well for calendar spraying and have a longer shelf life than other beneficials. With the industry’s zero-tolerance view toward pests, Costamagna says taking an inundative approach to prevent crop damage makes more economic sense than treating problems you don’t have with expensive chemistries.

Costamagna got the chance to tackle just such an issue in his role as Director of Plant Quality with a previous employer, Mid-American Growers in Granville, IL, now part of Color Point.

Under Costamagna’s direction, the operation’s growers applied bio-brews topically to plants once a week and injected them into the irrigation water. They also made additional applications when needed based on scouting intel. This routine continued throughout the year, no matter what crops they were growing, because the bio-brews were safe enough to spray on full, open bracts without any phytotoxicity.

Costamagna jokes that it wasn’t long before chemical companies were asking why Mid-American Growers wasn’t doing as much business with them.

“The business didn’t go anywhere, we just changed our practices,” he says. “That year we saved thousands of dollars in chemicals because we were no longer taking an aspirin for a headache we didn’t have.”

Scouting Indispensable to Bio-Brew Success

Costamagna has since implemented bio-brew applications, coupled with a strong scouting program, in his current role at American Color with the same positive results.

The bio-brews Costamagna uses are unique formulas developed for specific insect and disease targets. They incorporate a number of essential oils, ETOH (200-proof ethyl alcohol), and apple cider vinegar, which kills the active microorgansims while preserving each blend and leaving behind specific metabolites and enzymes. Apple cider aids in the preservation of the product while helping to break the cuticle of insects/mites, allowing the metabolites and enzymes to penetrate and kill. The essential oils in each blend cover the targeted organism to kill it by suffocation and leave a slight film on the leaf that gives the plant a sheen or luster. The blends of oils also agitate and excite the targeted insects and mites while having repellency, anti-feeding, and anti-oviposition properties.

Costamagna incorporates bio-brews into the irrigation water at American Color. He says he purchases latent inoculum of EM-1 from TeraGanix so he has consistency from batch to batch. It is used to make AEM (Activated Effective Microorganisms), which are sold ready to use as AG1000. This is primarily used in growing media but can also be sprayed.

A scouting program is critical to the success of a bio-brew program, Costamagna says, because growers need to have a good idea of where pest populations are trending (detectable, increasing, or decreasing). In addition to bio-brews and other pest and disease control measures, there are times when they must make the shift to using conventional tools (e.g., synthetic pesticides).

“At the end of the day, we need to produce quality plants,” Costamagna says. “When making this transition, we must choose wisely, assessing the risk and considering compatibility and that a knee-jerk reaction is not made qualitatively, but quantitatively, which is the result of a good scouting program.”

Although American Color internally produces its bio-brews, Costamagna says a majority of the products applied are available commercially. And for those worried about the complexity of implementing such a program, they shouldn’t be.

“The biggest thing growers need to realize is that they are not alone in going down this path,” Costamagna says. “There are companies and consultants out there that do not manufacture a commercial product and have the best interest of growers in mind. They are all about solutions that make economic sense and result in the desired control growers need.”

Here’s Why You’ll Want to Attend Tom Costamagna’s Presentation at the 2017 Biocontrols Conference

Tom Costamagna, Director of Growing at American Color in Orange, VA, worked for 10 years in the Department of Entomology at University of California, Davis (UC Davis) with Dr. Michael Parrella, one of the key researchers early on studying the implementation of biocontrol and biopesticide use in floriculture. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Costamagna worked as Senior Superintendent of Agriculture for UC Davis, where he continued to run Dr. Parrella’s research programs in developing applied pest control strategies in commercial greenhouse production to ultimately lead to a reduction in pesticide use by the environmental horticulture industry.

After leaving UC Davis, Costamagna worked for a year at Aldershot Greenhouses in Las Cruces, NM, before taking a position as Director of Plant Quality for Mid-American Growers in Granville, IL, which is now part of Color Point. Here he developed a bio-brew microbial spraying program as part of his integrated pest managment strategy.

Costamagna served as the National Production Manager for Dümmen Orange upon leaving Mid-American Growers. He took up his current position at American Color in 2016.

Conference Workshops Go In-Depth On Biocontrol Techniques

January 18, 2017

This year’s Biocontrols USA West Conference & Expo will introduce you to the latest techniques, technologies, and products you need to know to get the most from your crop protection program.

And those of you looking for a more in-depth application of those lessons, we are hosting workshops both before and after the conference. Whether you are just getting started with biocontrol or are looking to take your program to the next level, we are excited to offer you this opportunity to learn even more about putting these tools to work.

Suzanne Wainwright-Evans, Owner of Buglady Consulting, will facilitate both sessions:

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Space is limited for these workshops and both are filling up fast, so be sure to register now.

We asked Suzanne for insight on some of the topics she’ll cover in the workshops and lessons you’ll be able to take home and apply in your operation:

Q: What’s the biggest challenge no one considers, but they really should, in working with biocontrol?

Wainwright_webWainwright-Evans: The biggest thing people don’t consider enough is how to manage secondary pests without disrupting your existing biocontrol program. It can be challenging to manage multiple pest complexes in a crop. You have to understand how things work together and try to keep pest populations manageable. For example, if you are using aphid banker plants for control of aphids but a  spider mite problem blows up and you need to treat, you can really disrupt an effective biocontrol program you already have in place to manage aphids.

Another challenge that should get more attention is with quality control, and that’s considering the distance biological control agents are traveling in shipment and how they are stored. All of this can impact the quality of the biocontrols. Learning how to buy and manage beneficials will improve the quality of any biocontrol program.

Q: What’s the biggest mistake people make in using biocontrols?

Wainwright-Evans: The most common mistake I see is not using the right beneficial for the pest you have. It’s important to understand who eats what. You need to be really clear about exactly which pest you have so you can choose the right control. It’s also very important to understand the environment you’re working in and which biological control agents are appropriate for those conditions.

Q: What’s something surprising people will learn in the workshops?

Wainwright-Evans: I think people will be a little relieved to learn that checking for quality is really not that hard once you understand it. It’s easier than you might think. There are a number of simple, steps you can take to make sure you have good biocontrol agents to work with and you’re giving them the best opportunity to succeed. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Using Biopesticides and Biological Control Agents Together

December 16, 2016

Raymond Cloyd“If I’m using natural enemies in my pest control program can I also use biopesticides?” That’s one of the more common questions we hear from growers about biocontrols, and we’ve enlisted Kansas State University’s Dr. Raymond A. Cloyd to help provide the answer. Dr. Cloyd’s presentation, “Biological Control and Biopesticides: An Integrated Plant Protection Strategy That’s Time Has Come!” will kick off the Biocontrols USA West 2017 Conference & Expo, March 2-3 in Reno, NV. While combining these two useful biological tools makes sense, he says the process is not always as simple as you might think.

Q: How common is this practice of using beneficial insects and biopesticides together?

Cloyd: I think it’s a relatively new type of plant protection strategy that many growers are not really familiar with yet. They’re learning on the job and that’s what a lot of our research has focused on. We have been working on programs to help growers understand what they can expect.

For instance, we have been doing evaluations on entomopathogenic fungi — we get a lot of questions about whether these products are going to be harmful to biological control agents or natural enemies. I think there’s a misconception that these are completely safe together — it’s not true in all cases. Some of these entomopathogenic fungi may be either directly or indirectly harmful to certain natural enemies. There’s a steep learning curve on using these together. But it is still a viable strategy.

Q: What’s the most common mistake you see when growers are trying to incorporate biocontrol agents and biopesticides together?

Cloyd: I think the most common mistake we still see is the timing of application. Biological control is proactive, not reactive. You have to keep pest populations in check for these solutions to work most effectively. You have to have a really good scouting program in place, whether you’re using an integrated biocontrols program or a traditional chemical program.

Q: What’s the most surprising thing you think growers will take away from your presentation at the Biocontrols Conference this year?

Cloyd: Costs. For example, if you’re trying to integrate entomopathogenic fungi into your program for management or suppression of western flower thrips populations, then application costs may be less expensive than when using conventional insecticides. When you compare standard insecticide rotations, you can get the same level of suppression, but at a lower cost.

Growers typically look at direct costs when making pest management decisions, and the costs for scouting and labor tend to be similar whether you’re looking at a biocontrol solution or a conventional insecticide one. But when you consider the indirect costs of using biological control agents and biopesticides together in an integrated program, you may experience less resistance issues, a safer work environment, and less potential for phytotoxicity. There’s not always an obvious direct dollar value, however these are real cost savings you should consider.

Register now earn more about biopesticides, biocontrol agents, and how they can work together in your crops more effectively and profitably at the Biocontrols USA West 2017 Conference & Expo.