Pest Management Solutions for Specialty Crops and Specialty Uses | | IR-4 Inducts Dan Rossi into Hall of Fame | | | | |
The IR-4 Project Headquarters team is pleased to announce the induction of Dr. Daniel (Dan) Rossi to the IR-4 Hall of Fame. Rossi was nominated by Executive Director, Jerry Baron, and was approved by the Project Management Committee (PMC) for this award in recognition of his 40 years of dedicated service to IR-4.
Baron presented Rossi with this award at the Spring 2025 Project Management Committee meeting in Washington, D.C. Read the story to learn about Rossi's contributions to IR-4, and why he is so deserving of this high honor. Congratulations, Dan!
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2024 SOAR Awards, Part 2: Congratulations to Kimberly Nesci
and Mark VanGessel
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The SOAR Award honors external partners who exemplify the areas of Service, Outreach, Altruism and Research, while supporting specialty crop growers and the mission of The IR-4 Project. This year’s recipients have made significant contributions not only to their individual research areas but to the specialty crop industry as a whole.
IR-4 Headquarters selected four total recipients of the 2024 SOAR Award. Two recipients were presented in the fall; the additional two recipients received their awards at meetings this winter. We are pleased to announce Kimberly Nesci and Mark VanGessel as recipients of the 2024 SOAR Award (in addition to the previously announced Rich Bonanno and Julie Coughlin).
Read the full story highlighting the exceptional contributions of Kimberly Nesci and Mark VanGessel here. Congratulations, SOAR recipients!
| | 2024 Annual Report and Year-End Summary Now Online | | | | |
The IR-4 Project's 2024 Annual Report is now available to read and download on our website. The report catalogs our research and regulatory outcomes over the previous year, acknowledges our collaborators, lists our team members' publications, and more.
Check out the report (or the Year-End Summary for a lighter read), and join us in celebrating the successes achieved by our resilient team members across the country during 2024!
Check out the Annual Report page for more.
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Dalila Rendon Joins IR-4 Team at
Oregon State University
Dr. Dalila Rendon has joined Oregon State University as the new program leader for IR-4's pesticide registration field research at North Willamette Research and Extension Center. Her expertise is in Integrated Pest Management for specialty crops.
Please join us in welcoming Dalila!
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Specialty Crop Grower Magazine Features IR-4
In the latest issue of Specialty Crop Grower Magazine, IR-4 Regional Field Coordinator Kristen Searer-Jones spreads the word about IR-4's work in the southeast and beyond. Find the feature in print, or check out the web version for a bonus video conversation featuring Kristen with Editor Frank Giles.
View the Story
| | Friends of IR-4 and Commodity Liaison Committee in D.C. | | |
Members of the IR-4 Headquarters team, Project Management Committee, and Commodity Liaison Committee gathered in Washington, D.C. early this month for our annual joint meeting.
Special thanks to the Friends of IR-4 and the Commodity Liaison Committee (CLC) for meeting with members of Congress to convey the critical role of IR-4 in US specialty crop agriculture. From tropical fruits in Florida to hops in the Pacific Northwest, this energetic group is full of stories about IR-4's impacts straight from the field. For many small specialty crop industries, like mushrooms in Pennsylvania and ginseng in Wisconsin, IR-4 is essential to their success. We appreciate this group's time and advocacy efforts!
All are welcome to join the Friends of IR-4.
| | Save the Date: 2025 Food Use Workshop | | |
The 2025 Food Use Workshop will take place September 9-11 in Denver, Colorado. Research priorities for residue, product performance, and integrated solutions studies for 2026 will be identified during this workshop. A virtual attendance option will be available.
We will update the Food Use Workshop web page continually as the event approaches, so we recommend bookmarking it for future reference. We'll send reminders via newsletter, too, so please encourage your colleagues to sign up for these announcements. Registration, hotel booking, and a tentative agenda are coming soon.
July 1 is the deadline for submitting Project Clearance Requests to be considered at the Food Use Workshop.
We hope to see you in Denver (or virtually) in September!
| | Save the Date: 2025 Environmental Horticulture Workshop | | |
We look forward to gathering in Kansas City, Missouri, October 7-8, 2025 for the next Environmental Horticulture Workshop. At this event, stakeholders involved in the Environmental Horticulture Program will collaborate to set national and regional research priorities for the next two-year cycle.
August 29 is the deadline for submitting Project Clearance Requests and Grower Survey responses to be considered at the Environmental Horticulture Workshop.
Please bookmark the new event web page. We will update this page continually as the event approaches. Registration, hotel booking info, and a tentative agenda will be posted soon! We hope to see you in Kansas City!
| | Presentations Online from 2025 Industry Technology Session | | Thanks to our fantastic presenters and attendees, we hosted another successful Industry Technology Session on February 20. Recorded presentations from the event have now been posted to the event web page, including presenter contact information. We encourage you to reach out to presenters or IR-4 HQ with any questions. | | Join Us as a 2025 Event Sponsor | | Sponsors make IR-4's events possible and help us deliver on our grower-focused mission. Are you interested in joining IR-4 as an event sponsor for 2025? We welcome your partnership! With events spanning new technology, food crops and ornamental crops, 2025 is an opportune time to join us as a sponsor and reach a variety of specialty crop stakeholders. Please reach out to ir-4_project@ncsu.edu for more information. | | Environmental Horticulture | | |
In preparation for the 2025 Environmental Horticulture Workshop, the 2025 Environmental Horticulture Program Grower & Extension Survey is now available to collect your input.
The Grower & Extension Survey is the best way to tell us which pest problems you have difficulty managing due to insufficient tools. Your input helps shape discussions at the biennial Environmental Horticulture Workshop and helps our team understand the needs of growers in this vital sector. As of fall 2024, we have transitioned the survey to a Google form. You may complete and submit the form here (or find it linked on the EH Grower Needs page).
The deadline for submitting a survey for 2026/2027 research is August 29, 2025. Thank you for your important input—we look forward to securing tools that will help you grow your healthiest crops yet.
| | — Stay tuned for more in April — | | Follow us on social media! | | This work is supported by project award no. 2022-79111-38469, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, with substantial cooperation and support from the State Agricultural Experiment Stations, USDA-ARS and USDA-FAS. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy. In accordance with Federal Law and U.S. Department of Agriculture policy, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability. | | | | |
