Developing Commercial Landscape Scout Materials for IPM
Project description and objectives:
This project will educate commercial landscape maintenance professionals in scouting for pests and will benefit the state and the industry by making IPM more understandable and approachable. Field scouting deserves specific emphasis, which it currently lacks. Landscape businesses use field scouting to assess prospective new landscape maintenance accounts and inspect and retain existing accounts. Field scouting is a tangible action that can be listed on an invoice. There is money to be made from field scouting. While the foundation of effective landscape scouting is good identification and diagnosis, scouting is the first action that people can visualize as the front door into IPM. There is currently no landscape scouting guide. There are scouting guides in EDIS on production crops (citrus, tomato, cotton, and commercial nursery crops) but none for the landscape. There are manuals and training modules with landscape IPM information such as the Ornamental and Turfgrass Pest Management (SM 7). While these excellent publications mention scouting as part of IPM, they cover mostly pest identification. The project seeks to develop multi-platform, bi-lingual educational materials utilizing printed materials and web-based technologies, specifically on landscape scouting. This education will make landscape IPM understandable and accessible to businesses and customers and may reduce pesticide use by allowing landscape professionals to include pest identification in their assessments and by making scouting a part of their business plans and customer service.
The overall objective of this project is to provide educational resources for county extension faculty and commercial landscape professionals related to IPM scouting. Specific objectives of this project include:
1. Educate landscape professionals about scouting and implementation of scouting programs.
2. Make available other pest identification resources needed to support scouting.
3. Reduce the amount of pesticides and other chemicals used in commercial and residential landscapes.
Project leaders:
- Dr. Geoffrey Denny, Assistant Professor, Environmental Horticulture, Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology, UF/IFAS