Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Pollinators: habitat, honey bees

Target Pests

Practices

• Crop Production: pollination/pollinator health/habitat

• Sustainable Communities: public policy

The importance of pollinators and concerns about pollinator health are in the public consciousness, but progress in improving pollinator health has been limited. In response to the President’s Pollinator Health Task Force’s National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, states and tribal groups were encouraged to develop Managed Pollinator Protection Plans (MP3s) to support pollinator health. Progress made toward achieving steps in MP3s has faced challenges and has varied by state. A primary obstacle to progress on these plans is a lack of national-level direction and collaboration, resulting in each state or tribal group working independently. To address this obstacle, the project directors on this grant established a Managed Pollinator Protection Plans working group in 2020 through a North Central IPM Center grant. This working group has addressed the pollinator health crisis by facilitating a coordinated effort for professionals working on MP3s to learn from each other, share resources, and eliminate redundant efforts.

Pollinator education for pesticide applicators fits within the MP3 strategies, as many MP3 action plans place heavy emphasis on training pesticide applicators on integrated pest management (IPM) and best management practices. On a national scale, there is a need for increased information and programming about pollinator IPM for pesticide applicator training. There are also needs for standalone, online courses that can reach a broad audience of pesticide applicators and for training that are delivered in Spanish.

Our Managed Pollinator Protection Plans Working Group was formally established in March 2020 with funding received from the North Central IPM Center. We had many accomplishments over the past year, including identifying and recruiting new members, maintaining monthly meetings, creating a scientifically-based, nationally appropriate presentation about pollinators that can be used for education of pesticide applicators, creating a clearing house of shared resources, and beginning to develop a self-paced, online course about pollinators. We plan to build on our previous accomplishments to achieve the following outcomes in the upcoming year:

1. We will continue to organize monthly, national, online meetings for people who work on MP3s to connect and collaborate.
2. We will build on the online course that we are currently developing about pollinator IPM for pesticide applicators to design a module that is specific to landscape professionals.
3. We will promote our online pollinator IPM course to a broad audience of pesticide applicators. After finalizing the course in English, we will have it translated into Spanish. We will then use our networks to conduct a marketing campaign to promote the course to a wide range of pesticide applicators.

By providing information about pollinator IPM online to a broad audience, we expect to increase the understanding of topics related to MP3s and IPM. Pesticide applicators who adapt these suggested principles will reduce pesticide exposure to honey bees. Overall, we expect our project to lead to a greater adoption of IPM strategies, a reduction in pesticide use, and an increase in overall pollinator health.

1. Continue coordinating monthly, national online meetings for our working group
2. Develop an online course module about pollinator IPM specific to landscape professionals
3. Promote our online pollinator IPM course to a broad audience of pesticide applicators