MSU Enviroweather: Working with Stakeholders to Fulfill Critical Needs and Provide Tools for the Management of an Invasive Pest.

Michigan State University’s Enviroweather is the agriculturally focused Mesonet for the state of Michigan that collects data from 90 research-grade weather stations. Data are used to create weather summaries and crop specific tools to support Enviroweather’s mission to help Michigan agricultural producers and resource managers with management decisions for their operations. Our network has worked closely with stakeholders of specialty crop and other plant-based industries to fulfill critical needs including threats from emerging pests and diseases.

This presentation provides an example of how a multidisciplinary team composed of members from the Michigan State University Department of Entomology, MSU Extension, MSU Enviroweather along with key industry stakeholders collaborated to develop a model to help cherry growers manage a key invasive fruit pest, the spotted wing Drosophila (SWD). The model combines multiple factors that come into play for managing this pest; insecticide efficacy after rainfall, fruit susceptibility to infestation, and pest and crop phenologies (the weather-driven seasonal patterns of activity and population development).

The SWD Control Model was officially released in 2021 and can be accessed on the MSU Enviroweather website at https://enviroweather.msu.edu/crops/cherry/spottedwingdrosophila. A user can enter a bloom date to start the model, which estimates the risk of infestation based on crop development. In addition, the model estimates the efficacy of an insecticide considering recent precipitation. This will inform the user of whether additional pesticide application is warranted. This model is expected to benefit growers through improved management of this key pest, providing better fruit quality at harvest, and through reducing insecticide applications during periods when the pest is not present, if the fruit are not susceptible to damage, or if sufficient insecticide remains on the fruit to prevent SWD infestation.