The 1999 Report on Northeast Region Integrated Pest Management shows ways land grant universities in the northeast work together to address these important issues and provide measures of program performance. The Pennsylvania section highlights the PA IPM Program's efforts in promoting the use of IPM strategies on school grounds throughout the state. The report illustrates the regional and national value of individual and cooperative multi-state IPM efforts and demonstrates the strong return on public investment in IPM programming. When you think about Christmas time, fond memories of picking the perfect family tree surely stand out. Making sure consumers have numerous beautiful trees to choose from are Pennsylvania Christmas tree growers, who are more than ever using a toll-free hotline to help them achieve this goal.
Growers are alerted to different pests to scout for at different times during the season.
The hotline also informs growers how to properly use pesticides and includes meeting announcements. Calls for Christmas tree information totaled over 880 this past growing season, more than twice of any other commodity. While the service has enjoyed increasing usage by growers and suppliers of all commodities with the total number of calls surpassing 5,400 this year, the 1-800 number may not be able to operate much longer, said Lee Bentz, Pennsylvania IPM coordinator. The success of the service is the result of a multi-interest group of people. To date, in-kind services and a patchwork of funding from the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers and the IPM program at PSU and PDA supported all of this.