New York field crop producers were surveyed regarding use of field crop integrated pest management (IPM) practices through a collaboration between NYS IPM Program, Cornell’s Survey Research Institute (SRI) and NYS Agricultural Statistics Service (NYS NASS). The project team created, implemented, and summarized the survey results regarding NY producer use of field crop IPM, insights into the impact of Cornell Cooperative Extension’s educational efforts for field crop IPM and producer interest in specific environmental and pest management issues. The survey also provided insights into potential IPM adoption as affected by involvement with CCE and size of farm demographics. The survey also provides insights into opportunities for further IPM outreach and research efforts.

Field crop production is critical to sustaining competitiveness and profitability of New York`s (NY) leading agricultural commodity, dairy. Field crops are planted on 53 percent of NY`s 3.4 million acres of cropland. A number of insect, disease, weed and vertebrate pests annually impose risk to yield, quality or economic value of field crops. To minimize risk of pest damage, producers often rely upon pesticides as their primary tool for management. The New York State Integrated Pest Management Program develops sustainable ways to manage pests and helps people to use methods that minimize environmental, health, and economic risks. To develop and deliver timely, targeted, and effective IPM research based information that meet stakeholder needs it is important to regularly review grower use and adoption of IPM practices, keep current with clientele concerns, needs and research and extension opportunities, preferences for information delivery and acceptance of technological advances. A statewide survey was implemented in 2007 to gain insights on current of NY field crop grower trends and document indications of grower adoption of specific alfalfa and field corn IPM practices.

A survey instrument was developed to better understand and document current integrated pest management practices used by NY field crop producers. The NY IPM livestock and field crop IPM coordinator developed the questionnaire based on a previous field crop IPM adoption survey deployed in 1998. A twenty-five question survey instrument was developed in conjunction with Cornell University’s Survey Research Institute (SRI). SRI produced a final electronically scannable instrument for release to producers. In addition, SRI was responsible for entering data from all completed questionnaires, analyzing the results, and comparing them with a 1998 NY field crop IPM adoption survey data. The NY field office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) was responsible for selecting the statewide alfalfa and field corn grower sample with a representative range of farm sizes. NASS personnel were responsible for printing and mailing all surveys. Surveys were mailed to growers selected, with follow-up phone calls to non-respondents to encourage participation. Follow-up phone calls were conducted by NASS New York. Completed surveys were returned to the NASS field office, who evaluated surveys for completeness and removed farm specific identification information to protect respondent anonymity. Surveys were then mailed to SRI for scanning, further processing, verification, data tabulation and analysis. A total of 365 surveys were completed (45.6% response rate).

Survey findings provide insights into current IPM use, opportunities to address NY field crop producer pest management needs and improve impacts. Some highlights follow. Although a majority of respondents stated they use pesticides, three-quarters of small farms (<99 acres) did not use pesticides. Crop record keeping is important to document and track IPM actions. Respondents (40%) indicated they do not keep written field records, 33% keep field records for pesticide applications and 31% keep field records for crop variety. To enhance pest management decision making, g rowers (74%) reported monitoring field corn for insect, disease and weed problems, about two-thirds monitor fields themselves, and a majority state they monitor for problems two or three times during the growing season. Fifty-four percent of producers do not monitor alfalfa. Two-thirds of the smallest farms do not monitor alfalfa, while 75% of the largest farms do. Farm operators are generally responsible for alfalfa monitoring and almost three-fifths of respondents monitor for problems two to three times a season. Most respondents had not participated in a Cooperative Extension IPM program. Respondents obtain pest management information from a variety of sources with pesticide dealers and CCE the most popular. Respondents who self identified as using extension showed higher relative use of IPM practices such as records keeping, field monitoring, crop rotation, and pest thresholds.