Dear Friends, 
We are pleased to provide you updates and preliminary results from IR-4’s first Week of Workshops (WOW). The stakeholder research priority setting event occurred September 23-26, 2019 at the Delta Marriott in Hunt Valley, Maryland. Over 225 IR-4 stakeholders and team members participated.
The first day included a keynote address from USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture Director, Dr. J. Scott Angle. Among various topics, Dr. Angle provided an update of the status of NIFA’s relocation of Kansas City.
IR-4 Project Executive Director, Dr. Jerry Baron spoke about IR-4 recent success and some of upcoming challenges with a decade of flat funding. Baron also explained some of the details of the relocation of IR-4 Project Headquarters to North Carolina State University.
The first day concluded with the new technology session. In this session, chemical and bio-based pesticide companies provided short updates on their new technology. Several new products were shared with participants including the first public disclosure of a new fungicide that has drawn great interest from stakeholders. IR-4 is obtaining permission to post the various slide decks. Once approved, they can be viewed at the 2019 Food Crop Annual Workshop webpage.
The second day of the WOW focused on the establishment of priorities for the Food Crops Program. This included priorities for residue studies and priorities for product performance testing. The 49 priorities for the residue studies can be viewed on the new Food Crop Workshop landing page or at the 2019 Food Crop Annual Workshop webpage. Due to time constraints, more work is needed to hone in on the product performance testing priorities. These product performance priorities will be posted shortly.
In addition to the above, Nancy Fitz and Bo Davis of EPA’s Emergency Response and Minor Use Branch provided an update of many relevant topics involving EPA and minor uses of pesticides.
The third day had two sessions. The morning involved setting priorities for IR-4’s new Integrated Solutions research and the afternoon was a strategic planning session. In 2019, IR-4 established the first research projects that utilized chemical and/or bio-based pesticides in a systems like approach to manage hard to control pests, prevent pests from developing resistance to pesticides, mitigate or reduce residues in the final food product or other innovative practices. The top research priorities (AH) and backup priorities (AM) can be viewed at the new Food Crop Workshop landing page or at the 2019 Food Crop Annual Workshop webpage.
During the strategic planning session, participants worked together to perform a GAP analysis of twelve existing or new research opportunity areas. The information gathered in this session will be integrated in other information collection activities to serve as the stakeholder input base for IR-4’s new Strategic Plan which is due out in October 2020.
The final day involved the priority setting for the Environmental Horticulture Program. Similar to the first day, after an update by the Program Manager, Cristi Palmer, chemical and bio-based companies provided a session of new technology. Potential research projects were discussed with the participants. The participants then prioritized the most important project via a “sticker caucus”. This was followed by the selection of two high priority biopesticide projects and regional breakouts for region specific needs. These outcomes are available at the 2019 Environmental Horticulture Biennial Workshop webpage.
Initial feedback on this WOW were very favorable. Combining program prioritization into a single week saved significant travel dollars while encouraging more participate to attend. IR-4 thanks the participants and sponsors* of the 2019 WOW for their contributions.
For additional information, please contact Jerry Baron (jbaron@njaes.rutgers.edu)
*Platinum Sponsors: Bayer Crop Science, Corteva Agriscience, Syngenta
Gold Sponsors: Adama, FMC,
Silver Sponsors: Agrosource, AMVAC, BASF, Belchim, BioWorks, ISK Biosciences,
K-I Chemical USA, Marrone BioInnovations, Nichino America, Ocean Spray,
OHP, Valent
Bronze Sponsers: Nisso America, SePro