Oregon Wine Research Institute

• Integrated pest management.
• Research focusing on arthropod pests in orchards and vineyards, including new invasive pests such as the brown marmorated stink bug and emergent problems such as red blotch virus in wine grapes.
• Development and implementation of methods for pear pest management in certified organic orchard systems.
• Mating disruption and microbial controls for major pest species.
• Conservation of natural enemies.

Current and recent research includes:

• the testing of new control methods, emphasizing selective or non-disruptive tactics which are compatible with natural biological control agents
• the development of economic injury levels along with appropriate monitoring and sampling techniques
• and investigating the population dynamics of pests and their natural enemies

Funding: 

American Farmland Trust Grant,  “Continued Reduction of Organophosphates and the Implementation of an Organic Pest Control Program in Pear.” Co-PI’s were Richard Hilton, Phil VanBuskirk and David Sugar.

Other funding sources:

• Companies which produce and market certified organic control methods.
• Local tree fruit industry.

Impacts:

• Mating disruption is now used on over 50% of local pear acreage.
• A workable organic program has been developed and is being implemented on the 7 orchards which comprise 5% of the acreage.
• Certified organic insect control methods and tactics, such as mating disruption, codling moth granulosis virus and kaolin clay are increasingly adopted by conventional growers.
• A new monitoring tool for codling moth control is used on over 30% of pear acreage.