http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Heather/JES%2006-27-2012%20IPM.mp3
As Connecticut’s growing season heads towards its peak, farmers are facing greater risks from more pests and diseases than they’ve seen in recent years. The situation could turn even worse because, as WNPR's Jan Ellen Spiegel reports, a popular pest management program was cut at the last minute. And that means there will be fewer eyes on the fields, just when they may be needed most.
Joe DeFrancesco is standing in one of his cornfields among the 120 acres his family has farmed for 4 generations in Northford. The reason he hasn’t sprayed for the pesky corn borer insect is because for the last two summers he’s been in a program run jointly by the University of Connecticut Extension Service with funds from the Natural Resources Conservation Service – the NRCS, which is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The program has taught him ways to minimize using chemicals through something called integrated pest management or IPM. Instead of just spraying every few days, the way the old-timers did, DeFrancesco has a big white bag in the middle of the field. It’s actually a trap for corn borer moths. He doesn’t spray until the moths reach a certain threshold.
But this year, which would have been DeFrancesco’s third and final year in the program, he and dozens of farmers around the state will be on their own.
In April, NRCS eliminated the funds that paid for Extension educators like Jude Boucher to come to their farms every week to teach them about IPM.
Boucher said there’s a couple of thousand dollars for gas to get him and the other educators into the field – but that’s far short of the more than $200,000 NRCS cut.
