CEPEP Title IR-4 Minor Crop Title
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE MINOR CROP PEST MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The Minor Crop Pest Management Program (MCPMP) works to ensure that Colorado fruit and vegetable growers have the tools they need to manage pests successfully.  The Program is funded in part by the USDA IR-4 Project, a federal/state/private cooperative research program started in 1963 to increase the availability of crop protection chemicals to minor crop producers.  A minor crop is defined as any crop grown on less than 300,000 acres nationally.

Colorado State University's Minor Crop Pest Management Program (MCPMP) is going into it's 5th season of research supporting the registration of pesticides for use in minor crops (mostly vegetables and fruits) and for use in limited acreage applications on field crops.  To date, the program has conducted 52 magnitude of residue trials and 5 efficacy and performance trials.  These include work on all three major classes of pesticides (fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides) on a wide variety of fruit, vegetable, and field crops.  Fruit crops include apple, cherry (Sweet and tart), and pear.  Vegetable crops include cabbage, cantaloupe, carrot, cilantro, cucumber, dill, lettuce (head and leaf), onion, peanut, pepper (chile: field and bell: greenhouse) potato, spinach, summer squash, and tomato (greenhouse).   Field crops include barley, dry bean, proso millet, sugar beet, and sunflower.

Last year marked our second season of work with greenhouse crops.  Three greenhouse tomato trials  were conducted as well as our first greenhouse bell pepper trial. 

 Our list of work for the 2004 growing season includes trials on dry beans, grass (forage/hay), greenhouse tomato (includes one cherry tomato trial), spinach, onion, alfalfa, tart cherry, potato, and barley.  We're looking forward to another successful year of providing the data necessary to ensure that growers in Colorado have the pest management tools available to produce the best crops in the world!

Click here to initiate a Colorado Pesticide Clearance Request.

You may also click here to view the IR-4 Minor Use Colorado Report Card.

WHAT WE DO

The goal of the MCPMP is to provide Colorado growers with safe, effective and economical tools to control pests on minor crops. Toward this end, we do the following:

  1. Work with individual growers, grower organizations, nurserymen, crop protection companies, agricultural scientists and extension personnel to identify specific pest control needs.
  2. Identify new pest management strategies and control options.
  3. Prepare and submit a Pesticide Clearance Request (PCR) to IR-4 if a new pesticide or biopesticide is identified.
  4. Participate in setting national research priorities. The culmination of this is the annual IR-4 Food Use Workshop.
  5. Following the PCR selection and approval process, the MCPMP conducts field and greenhouse residue trials according to EPA's Good Laboratory Practice standards, a very strict "code of conduct" used to ensure the quality of the data used by the EPA to set tolerances for allowable levels of pesticide residue on food crops.
  6. Submit research reports to the Western IPM IR-4 Project located at University of California, Davis. The data are reviewed and sent on to IR-4 headquarters at Rutgers in New Jersey.  Our research is combined with that from other facilities throughout the United States and submitted to the EPA as a petition to request registration of the pesticide for use by growers.
After a tolerance is set, we work with the Colorado Department of Agriculture and the manufacturer to develop a label for the pesticide.

 CROP PROFILES

In addition to the work described above, we have developed a series of minor crop profiles for the USDA Office of Pest Management Policy. These profiles provide information about acreage, value, Colorado's rank in U.S. production for a given crop, common production practices, major pests, and pest management strategies. These crop profiles can be found in the Pest Management section.  Others are in development, and existing crop profiles are routinely reviewed and updated to ensure accuracy.

Crop profiles are a visible, accessible public tool used by the USDA, EPA, Colorado Department of Agriculture, growers, and others. The profiles outline information on crop production and pest management practices that is used to evaluate and review EPA risk assessments, Reregistration Eligibility Documents (REDs), proposed risk mitigation/management measures, and proposed label modifications, i.e., changes in application rates or pre-harvest intervals, crop deletions, buffer zones, reentry intervals, etc. By comparing profile information with EPA assumptions we are better able to respond to risk assessments and other regulatory decisions that are being made.

Crop profiles help identify critical pest management needs, including the importance of individual pesticides to both IPM and Resistance Management Programs. Identifying how regulatory decisions may impact these established programs will be of significant importance during the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) and will help direct IR-4/MCPMP priorities.  For more information about crop profiles visit the USDA's Office of Pest Management Policy web site.

We are also developing a collection of pesticide matrices that can be used to identify chemical and cultural methods of pest control for important minor crops within Colorado.

Sandra McDonald serves as the Project leader and State Liaison Representative. Clark Oman serves as the Field Research Director, responsible for managing the field and greenhouse trials. Contact Sandra or Clark for more information.
 

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