Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Additional Plants: flowers

• Agronomic: sunflower

Target Pests

Practices

• Pest Management: biological control, chemical control, cultural control, decision support system, host resistance, other, pesticide application timing, pesticide resistance management, precision pesticide use

• Crop Production: crop rotation, fertilizers, irrigation, no-till

• Soil Management: soil microbiology, soil quality/health

Approximately 85-90% of the 2.0 M acres of sunflower in the U.S. are planted in the North Central States. According the National Sunflower Association, diseases are the most significant biological yield-limiting factor for sunflower production, yet few pathologists work on sunflower and until recently, limited reference and Extension materials on sunflower diseases were available. As a consequence, disease identification and management consistently have been challenging and some growers resort to a ‘spray and pray’ approach to disease management. To address this problem, a small group of pathologists formed a Sunflower Pathology Working Group (SPWG) in 2013 with support from the North Central IPM Center. The mission of the SPWG continues to be to develop reference and Extension materials that will help growers and stakeholders better identify diseases and facilitate their ability to use IPM, and to deliver that information in the forms they are most likely to utilize. The objectives of the SPWG in 2021 are to; 1) Increase communication and synergize effort and outputs of pathologists working on sunflower, 2) Create a Sunflower Nutritient and Abiotic Disorders Diagnostic Series, 3) Publish a Plant Health Progress Diagnostic Guide (PHP-DG) on head diseases, and 4) Update and administer evaluation instruments. Objective 1 continues to build relationships among scientists among the NC states with those in the international sunflower community. Objective 2 was designed directly in response to stakeholder feedback received in January 2020, in which stakeholders reported they were less comfortable identifying non-infectious disorders than any group of diseases and that pocket-sized print materials were among the information delivery methods they found most useful. Notably, objective address a very a large impediment to effective IPM, as growers often mis-diagnose nutritional and abiotic disorders as diseases and often consider treating them with a fungicide. This objective is targeting the specific audience of plant disease diagnosticians, who have a disproportionate role in identification of sunflower diseases in the North Central United States. This publication is third in a four-part series, that when complete, will provide the most complete diagnostic reference material for sunflowers globally.  Objective 4 builds upon a survey instruments originally designed in 2013 that we have adapted and re-administered nearly annually, for which the SPWG has used to assess impacts and determine future objectives. We anticipate that the impacts of the SPWG will be an increased ability of growers and stakeholders to accurately and quickly identify economically important disease threats and implement the most efficacious and cost-effective IPM strategy.  Ultimately, we believe our impact will be to eliminate the ‘spray and pray’ approach to sunflower disease management, and replace it with an IPM approach. This proposal is designed to help fulfill the mission of the NC IPM Center ‘…..to facilitate the development and adoption of IPM solutions, based in the North Central region’, and will contribute to NCIPM Center Signature Programs ‘Invasive Species and Re-Emerging Pests’, ‘Pest Resistance Management’, and ‘Advanced Genetic Tools and IPM’.

1) Increase communication and synergize effort and outputs of pathologists working on sunflower, 2) Create a Sunflower Nutritient and Abiotic Disorders Diagnostic Series, 3) Publish a Plant Health Progress Diagnostic Guide (PHP-DG) on head diseases, and 4) Update and administer evaluation instruments.