The ability to reliably and simply assess a pest population is critical to delivering an economical, environmentally responsible IPM system (Bechinski, 1994). There is no research-based, user-friendly scouting system for this aphid, because it is so new to sorghum. It was estimated that 989,000 acres of sorghum were treated with an insecticide for control of SCA in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas (Bowling 2015).
Accelerated adoption of new technologies by farmers can only be accomplished through an integrated approach. We propose to combine partial solutions from multiple disciplines through the expansion of our web-based application, myFields.info. Research questions will focus on knowledge gaps to drive content integration and our ability to connect new knowledge to stakeholders. We will target two production phases where decision-making is integral to farm-level optimization: preplant and postemergence.
This project, "Using Mobile Technologies to Forecast and Track Natural Enemy Effectiveness on Cereal Aphids in Changing Landscapes" was funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The overarching goal of this project was to expand the accessibility of existing pest management tools by using smartphone technologies and other sophisticated yet accessible devices to develop a wide-area monitoring and management system to account for changes in land use and bioenergy demands.