A federally funded project designed to encourage tart cherry growers to transition to more benign pest and disease controls showed that plum curculio, a key cherry pest in Michigan, was difficult to control with the limited range of reduced-risk pesticides available. However, more new pesticides are becoming available and will be used in a second phase of the project starting this year. The four-year project, which ended last season, was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Avoidance and Mitigation Program (RAMP) with the goal of developing reduced-risk pest management strategies for tart cherries. It involved a partnership between […]