California grants awarded for innovative projects reducing pesticide overreliance
The grants will fund four scientists and their teams who are furthering integrated pest management strategies to control urban and farm pests.
The 2021 Pest Management Research Grants will fund four scientists and their teams who are furthering integrated pest management (IPM) strategies to control urban and farm pests. IPM emphasizes monitoring, trapping and biological controls as a first line of defense against pests, such as destructive bugs and germs, and a lower reliance on conventional chemical pesticides.
“DPR’s Research Grants and the work they fund are vital to our mission to protect human health and the environment,” said DPR Director Val Dolcini. “This money will fund cutting-edge research by some of the state’s top scientists specializing in pest management.”
The 2021 award recipients are Dr. Johanna Del Castillo, University of California, Davis; Dr. Kerry Mauck, UC Riverside; Dr. Chow-Yang Lee, UC Riverside; and Dr. Zheng Wang, of UC Agriculture Natural Resources (UCANR).
- Castillo seeks to identify easily adopted practices for minimizing diseases in commercial-scale, vegetable-transplant nurseries, with the goal of lowering costs and decreasing use of chemicals. By creating a set of best practices, her team will also share the findings with production nurseries. Castillo will receive $87,986 for this project.
- Mauck is exploring “plant immunity priming” in lettuce and melon production to stimulate plants’ natural defenses against plant-damaging viruses. This could reduce the need for pesticides to kill insects that spread the diseases and bolster crop production. Mauck’s project is receiving $216,967.
- Lee is researching the use of sucralose – a common artificial sweetener – in baits to eliminate German cockroaches. If successful, sucralose could provide a safe, low-cost way to control common urban pests, which can spread disease. Lee’s project is receiving $110,938.
- Wang is looking at methods to reduce fungal diseases in seedless watermelons by grafting resistant root systems onto plants and adding a bacterium – trichoderma – to the soil. This could reduce pesticide use, lower costs and increase yields. Wang will receive $109,055 for this project.