Exploring Best Management Practices with Mott’s Growers and the IPM Institute of North America.
A sustainability project launched by Keurig Dr. Pepper who houses the apple sauce brand Mott’s has brought us together to collaborate with the IPM Institute of North America to help Mott’s growers in New York learn about how their specific orchards support wild bee communities, how to enhance their landscape to better support wild bees and determine how robust their wild bee community is while exploring best management practice changes to their pesticide programs. This Spring we will be assessing their farmscapes and initiating year one of this exploratory program.
Train-the-Trainer Wild Bee Education Program
We are grateful to the NE-SARE for funding our new training program to educate agricultural service providers across the northeast region of the U.S. about the biology, importance, and conservation of wild bees in northeastern agricultural operations with a special focus on Apple production.
GOAL: We are seeking out service providers who work closely with growers, such as consultants, extension educators, researchers, master naturalists and master gardeners to enlist in our free training program and commit to taking what you learn and sharing it with agricultural producers across the northeast.
The five learning objectives are:
- Wild bee diversity, ecology, and natural history (February 2023)
- Habitat management for enhancing wild bee populations (June 2023)
- BMP’s for pollinator friendly pesticide use (September 2023)
- The economic value of wild bees (January 2024)
- How to use the smartphone-based bee monitoring tool along with your farm assessment to guide your on farm management decisions. (April 2025)
While the education modules are focused on apple production there are resources included to help share information with other growers including small fruits and vegetable growers. The idea is that the educator can mix an match these subjects to fine tune their training to growers to deliver comprehensive information about supporting wild bees and gaining a better understating of what wild bee populations look like on their lands.
In Spring 2024 we will be travelling around the northeast in support of this project to give in-person trainings with an ample Q & A session, so educators feel comfortable delivering these learning modules on their own. To some degree trainings can and will be facilitated via online forums as well.
If you would like access to this education program, you must commit to giving at least one presentation along with collecting surveys from participating audience (growers) plus filling out a self-survey. To get connected please subscribe to our website and email mtv32[at]cornell[dot]edu
