May 29, 2025

Pest Management Solutions for Specialty Crops and Specialty Uses

LATEST NEWS

IR-4 Welcomes New Environmental Horticulture Program Manager

The IR-4 Project Headquarters at NC State University is pleased to announce the hiring of Josh Kindel as our new Environmental Horticulture Program Manager. Through this important role on the biology team, Josh will provide leadership of the Environmental Horticulture Program, including overseeing the biennial priority-setting workshop, managing the national research program, engaging with stakeholders, and assessing IR-4 data generated to support regulatory actions.

We are delighted to welcome Josh to the IR-4 Headquarters team, and we are glad to have his expertise now at the helm of such a vital program! Josh can be reached at: jtkindel@ncsu.edu.

Please join us in welcoming Josh to IR-4, and visit our website to read more about him.

IR-4 Executive Director Jerry Baron has been named an inaugural recipient of the NC State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Values Award for Excellence in Integrity.

The CALS Values Awards honor individuals who demonstrate one or more of the core CALS values—excellence, inclusion, integrity, sustainability, community, freedom and collaboration—in their daily work.

Additionally, Deborah Carpenter, National Lab Director and Associate Director for Regulatory Sciences, was honored in 2024 with a Pride of the Wolfpack Award.

Read more about these fantastic recognitions on our website!

EVENT UPDATES

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 very soon (keep an eye on your inbox next week)!

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.

RESEARCH UPDATES

Food Crops

The latest tolerance success was added to the IR-4 website in February (none were added in March or April). Find other tolerance successes under Food Crop Successes & Stories.

• Cyprodinil + Fludioxonil (Federal Register dates: February 25 and 26, 2025)

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 June —

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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.