Project Grant 20167000525652

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded the Regents of the University of Idaho $548,008 on September 1, 2026, under the Alfalfa Seed and Alfalfa Forage Systems Program (CFDA 10.330) to evaluate integrated pest management strategies for aphid-vectored viruses in alfalfa production. The project will assess the efficacy of combining selective soft insecticides with mineral crop oils to reduce transmission of alfalfa mosaic virus, bean leafroll virus, and pea...

This federal Cooperative Agreement award from the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS), under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025), is focused on developing a biological control strategy for the European Cherry Fruit Fly (ECFF), an invasive pest recently detected in New York. The $115,000 award to Cornell University will support surveys to determine the distribution of ECFF and identify...

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded the University of California, Davis $499,484 under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) on September 1, 2026, to develop pathogen characterization and disease management strategies for Colletotrichum crown rot (CCR), an emerging strawberry disease in California. The project will collect CCR specimens from across California, culture the pathogen isolates, extract and sequence their DNA to establish...

This $117,047 cooperative agreement awarded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025) will support host-specificity testing of the biological control agent Dolichogenidea gelechiidivoris. This parasitic wasp is being evaluated as a potential long-term control option for the South American tomato pinworm, an invasive pest that poses a significant threat to...

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded the University of Wisconsin System $750,439.57 on September 15, 2025, under the Alfalfa Seed and Alfalfa Forage Systems Program (CFDA 10.330) to conduct research quantifying damage from modern harvest equipment to alfalfa plants and developing extension strategies to promote controlled traffic farming practices. The research, performed at Madison, Wisconsin, will measure the effect of machine traffic and tire...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded the University of Idaho $751,002 on September 15, 2025, under the Alfalfa Seed and Alfalfa Forage Systems Program (CFDA 10.330) to establish weed biomass thresholds in alfalfa forages through designed field studies, on-farm research, and surveys evaluating how individual weed species impact alfalfa biomass yield, forage nutritive value, livestock performance, toxic compound accumulation, milk production, and...

The Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded Utah State University $299,630 on September 15, 2026, under the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (CFDA 10.310) to investigate biological control programs for squash bugs in watermelon and cucurbit production. The project addresses squash bug (Anasa tristis) management challenges in Florida watermelons and Utah cucurbits, where current practice relies on broad-spectrum insecticides that harm pollinators and...

The Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service awarded a $118,526 cooperative agreement to the University of Wisconsin System, operating through University of Wisconsin - Madison, on September 1, 2026, to assess how soil characteristics affect the persistence and transmission of a biocontrol pathogen targeting Japanese beetles and to develop models predicting beetle emergence based on abiotic factors. Work performed in Wisconsin includes field sampling and screening...

The Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service awarded a $119,115 Cooperative Agreement to the Colorado Department of Agriculture on May 1, 2026, to continue biocontrol activities for rangeland ecology, noxious weed management, and pest suppression in Colorado and the West. The award funds identification of new biocontrol agents, rearing of agents when available, and environmental release to establish pest and weed management across Colorado and other western states....

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service awarded West Virginia University Research Corporation a cooperative agreement worth $114,780 on June 1, 2026, to develop and deploy deep learning tools for rapid identification of the invasive cotton jassid and related leafhopper species from trap images. The project team will develop, train, and validate transformer-based deep learning object detection models integrated with morphometric features to distinguish cotton...