David Crowder
Potatoes are one of the highest value crops grown in Washington, but growers face threats from pests such as Colorado potato beetle (CPB). Because potatoes are an annual crop that grows for only 4-5 months, these pests live outside of crop fields from approximately September to May, and adults migrate into fields in late spring […]
Winter pea could be a transformative crop in Washington due to high yields, tolerance for a wide range of conditions, and potential to provide income stability for farmers. In contrast to spring peas, winter peas have higher nutrition and can grow in more severe environments. Yet, although acreage of winter peas is growing rapidly, there […]
Aphids are abundant, outbreaking insect herbivores that can deal considerable economic damage to cereals and legumes due to pathogens they transmit. While aphid-virus outbreaks can have catastrophic impacts on crops, we do not yet have reliable population models that predict the time and location for areas at high risk for aphid-virus outbreaks. Because these tools […]
The composition of microbial communities can have dramatic, but often unappreciated, impacts on crop production. In apple crops, surveys indicate that numerous microbe species colonize flowers and nectar, which can in turn mediate floral and nectar traits and pollinator behavior. Microbial communities also affect the susceptibility of trees to pathogens such as the bacterium Erwinia […]
The popularity of quinoa in the past decade has quadrupled prices at U.S. retail outlets. For all this demand, the vast majority of the quinoa consumed in the U.S. is imported from Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, with 65% of the quinoa sold in the U.S. being organic. This project hopes to increase organic quinoa production […]
Market forces are driving conventional Columbia Basin potato growers towards less-chemically-intensive pest management approaches, such as biological control. Insect-killing, entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs), which live in the soil, have great potential for controlling insects with belowground life stages — such as the Colorado potato beetle. Our initial results suggest that EPNs can be incredibly abundant in […]
Biological control by naturally-occurring predatory insects and spiders is an ecologically friendly and sustainable approach to pest management. Biological control is often underutilized, however, in part because we know little about how to successfully conserve predators to maximize their impacts on pests. Here, in Washington potato fields, we investigated the effects of planting wildflower insectaries […]