Consumer demand for alternatives to pesticide use is growing due to changes in pesticide registrations and a growing concern about pesticide safety that has resulted in highly restrictive local ordinances. Despite this interest in using non-chemical alternatives to pesticides, home gardeners have relatively few options that have been proven cost effective. Although our past hands-on workshops on pesticide alternatives have generated a substantial pool of backyard researchers who dramatically reduced pesticide use, our impact has been limited to the hundred or so people we can train each year. To expand the impact of our program we have developed web-based tools to facilitate development of a large network of home gardeners who are actively experimenting with pesticide alternatives. These tools include solicitation and execution of clearly defined experiments, data collection and summary, as well as a bulletin board to facilitate communication. In the summer of 2001 we worked with 80 experimenters to test the limits of the system and to define electronic training needs for further development and geographical expansion of this project. Results indicate that despite some initial resistance gardeners readily embrace the computer-based tools we have provided and continue to experiment and reduce their pesticide use.
Keywords: biological control, participatory research
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA