A new app designed for better thrips management is in the works at Cornell University. Onion researchers at Cornell received nearly $100,000 from the USDA’s Specialty Crop Block Grant program. The funding is earmarked for a project aimed at advancing thrips management in onion using a new sampling plan and app. Brian Nault, a professor of entomology, and Denis Willett, an assistant professor of entomology, will lead the project, assisted by Lidia Komondy, a Ph.D. student.
Currently, guidelines are available to growers for season-long thrips control using fewer insecticide applications based on action thresholds. While these guidelines are more efficient and generate cost savings in insecticides, they depend on significant efforts in sampling onion fields for thrips to determine if densities have exceeded an action threshold, which can keep growers from using the guidelines, Nault says.
With the grant funding, the researchers will implement a research-based sampling plan for thrips and develop an app that includes the sampling plan, past spray records and the thrips management guidelines. This will reduce sampling time needed for making accurate control decisions, thereby increasing adoption of the management guidelines, which will ultimately decrease insecticide applications and grower expenses, according to the researchers.
