USDA Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program in Michigan tart cherries: Pest status, economics, and ecological effects in the transition from organophosphates to reduced risk IPM

The organophosphate phase-out in US tart cherries, as directed by the Food Quality Protection Act, presented a challenge for Michigan producers by forcing a transition from conventional organophosphate-based pest management programs to newer reduced-risk and organophosphate alternative programs. It is important to evaluate these systems to ensure the industry’s ability to maintain an economically viable and environmentally sound IPM program. This project focused on investigating the transition, concentrating on difficulties associated with pest populations, ecological factors, and economics. Since 2004 these researchers have compared standard and alternative programs in nine Michigan orchards and the summary results are presented here. Each orchard was evaluated for damage by the key cherry pests plum curculio and cherry fruit fly, as well as secondary pests. Overall, organophosphate-based programs achieved better pest control. Cursory cost analysis showed that pesticides for the reduced-risk systems averaged 2.08 times more costly per acre than the conventional systems in 2009. The ecosystem health of the two programs was compared using a beneficial arthropod sampling system that looked at the presence and diversity of ecosystem services. The conventional orchards experienced slightly less beneficial arthropod disruption than the FQPA-induced alternative orchards.