Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

Success Stories

• Managment of Early & Late Blight of Potatoes

• Managment of Orange Wheat Blossom Midge

Management of Early and Late Blight of Potatoes

By: N. Gudmestad and G. Secor, North Dakota State University, and D. Preston, North Dakota State University and University of Minnesota

Eighty-five percent of North Dakota's potato growers use IPM information to make management decisions.

Challenge

• Timely information about diseases.
• Effective management strategies that protect yields and reduce pesticide use.
• Easy access to information so they can respond rapidly

Flowering Potato Field

Responses

By adapting the Wisconsin irrigated potato disease management model, North Dakota researchers enabled producers to successfully predict leaf diseases of nonirriated potatoes grown in the Red River Valley.  The model requires local weather data to make accurate predictions and easy grower access to information as it is generated.  The project:

• Collects weather data from weather monitoring stations and foecasts early and late blight development.
• Expands the existing North Dakota Ag Weather Network (NDAWN) to include additional sites in the potato production area.
• Makes specific recommendations for potato production areas, based on weather and disease data.
• Provides rapid responses to growers via toll-free telephone hotline.
• Reports weather and disease information on the Data Transimission Network and local radio networks.

Late Blight Disease Symptoms

• Though the weather was more favorable for late blight in 1994 than in 1993, the incidence and severity of late blight were significantly less, because the project enabled growers to respond quickly and appropriately.

• Eighty-five percent of potato growers used the information to make managment decisions.

• Using the potato disease managment model eliminated two fungicides applications when only early blight was threatening. 

Locations of weather stations of NDAWN system. Red color indicates potato sites.