SMARTPHONE APPLICATION IN SUPPORT OF THE IPM PIPE

This project will deliver a state-of-the-art smartphone application in support of the ipmPIPE. The ipmPIPE addresses important components of the National IPM Road Map including: (i) improving cost benefit analyses through the adoption of IPM practices and (ii) reducing potential human health risks and adverse environmental effects from pests and related pest management practices. Extension specialists from many of the states participating in the ipmPIPE have requested the development and deployment of a smartphone application to enable them and designated crop consultants to input observations from the field and receive back products generated from the data. Observations delivered to the ipmPIPE through the smartphone application will include pathogens that cause important diseases of soybean (including rust, frogeye, aerial blight and Cercospora blight), corn (southern rust, Goss's wilt), and wheat (stem, stripe and leaf rusts) as well as potential fungicide-resistant strains or new races of these pathogens. The smartphone application will also contribute to EIPM-CS goals by providing a "push" technology to reach crop consultants and growers with pest decision support information in a real-time framework.