New Commercial Pesticide Applicator Manuals Available Soon

The Pest Management and the Environment Program (PME) at Iowa State University has revised several training manuals for commercial pesticide applicators and certified handlers. The full-color training manuals are intended to provide Iowans with the basic understanding of safe and responsible pesticide use and the information needed to successfully pass the certification exams

Coors Brewing Company Point of Sale Application Suite: Winning Mindshare with Customers, Retailers, and Distributors

Coors Brewing Company is the third largest company in the highly competitive U.S. beer industry. The primary target market for its products is young adults, who demand innovative approaches to marketing from brewers, including relevant and creative point of sale (POS) materials in retail outlets. Coors depends upon the cooperation of distributors and retailers to place Coors\u27 POS materials in ways that will give their products greater visibility. Since all retailers and most distributors of Coors products also sell competitors\u27 products, Coors realized that it must win the battle for mindshare with its distributors and retailers who are in a position to influence what the retail customer buys. For many years, Coors was at a competitive disadvantage with its POS deployment process. The distribution of POS materials was costly and time-consuming, involving paper-based procedures for ordering and fulfillment. In 2001, Coors created an e-Business Department to address enterprise-wide opportunities such as the POS process. As one of their first efforts, members of the e-Business Department created a portal-based POS Application Suite that proved to be highly effective in addressing the needs of its distributors and retailers for POS materials in support of Coors marketing campaigns. As one element of the POS Application Suite, Coors partnered with HP to create an e-POS system . The e-POS system contains embedded innovative technology that permits distributors to customize POS materials for their specific needs while, at the same time, letting Coors maintain central control over what is permitted to be used under an important new national licensing agreement with the National Football League. The POS Application Suite gives Coors a first-mover advantage over its larger competitors

Worker Protection Standard Training Video for Workers and Handlers Now Available

The Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP) at Iowa State University and the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), Pesticide Bureau announce a new EPA-approved PowerPoint and narrated video to train workers and handlers under the 2015 revised Worker Protection Standard (WPS)

Protecting Bees in Iowa

Beekeepers and commercial pesticide applicators play important roles in protecting Iowa\u27s bees. This publication outlines actions both groups can take to reduce the risks to bees that benefit Iowa\u27s agroecosystem.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_ag_pubs/1092/thumbnail.jp

Iowa Pesticide Education Program Updates Name

Effective December 1, the Pest Management and the Environment (PME) program at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach will be known as Pesticide Safety Education Program (PSEP). The name change better describes the programs offered, audiences served and reflects the program’s emphasis on providing educational information throughout Iowa on the safe and effective use of pesticides

North American species of Agrostocynips Diaz (Hymenoptera: Figitidae: Eucoilinae), parasitoids of Agromyzidae (Diptera): bionomics and taxonomy

The genus Agrostocynips Diaz is redescribed, as well as two species endemic to the Nearctic: Agrostocynips diastrophi (Ashmead) and A. robusta (Ashmead). Previous to this study, only Neotropical species of Agrostocynips were well diagnosed both taxonomically and biologically. Agrostocynips belongs to the Zaeucoila group of genera, which are Neotropical eucoilines that principally parasitize Agromyzidae (Diptera); among these genera, species of Agrostocynips are some of the few representatives that are found in the Nearctic. Detailed host records and biological notes are provided for the Nearctic species

Extravehicular Activity and Planetary Protection

The first human mission to Mars will be the farthest distance that humans have traveled from Earth and the first human boots on Martian soil in the Exploration EVA Suit. The primary functions of the Exploration EVA Suit are to provide a habitable, anthropometric, pressurized environment for up to eight hours that allows crewmembers to perform autonomous and robotically assisted extravehicular exploration, science/research, construction, servicing, and repair operations on the exterior of the vehicle, in hazardous external conditions of the Mars local environment. The Exploration EVA Suit has the capability to structurally interface with exploration vehicles via next generation ingress/egress systems. Operational concepts and requirements are dependent on the mission profile, surface assets, and the Mars environment. This paper will discuss the effects and dependencies of the EVA system design with the local Mars environment and Planetary Protection. Of the three study areas listed for the workshop, EVA identifies most strongly with technology and operations for contamination control

Review and Quiz Modules for Iowa Commercial Pesticide Applicator Manual Now Available

A new CD/DVD, the Iowa Core Companion, now is available to assist those preparing for the commercial pesticide applicator core exam. It provides reviews and quizzes for a better understanding of the material covered in the Iowa Core Manual. The Iowa Core Companion review and practice quizzes are based on information needed to pass the Iowa Core examination for commercial pesticide applicators

Improving Projections of Tidal Marsh Persistence under Climate Change with Remote Sensing and Site-Specific Data

Tidal marshes are dynamic ecosystems that are threatened by climate change and sea-level rise. To characterize baseline condition and historic climate sensitivities, and improve projections into the future, new methods are required that integrate data from the field and remote sensing platforms. Marsh elevation response models can be calibrated with site-specific data to determine the vulnerability of a marsh to sea-level rise and help guide management decisions. Elevation models are sensitive to initial elevation, the rate of accretion, and aboveground biomass. The overarching goal of this dissertation was to develop techniques to improve these important model inputs and evaluate the range of spatial and temporal variation. Light detection and ranging (lidar) is an invaluable tool for collecting elevation data, however dense vegetation prevents the accurate measurement of the tidal marsh surface. In Chapter 2, I describe the development of a technique to calibrate lidar digital elevation models with survey elevation data using readily available multispectral aerial imagery from the National Agricultural Inventory Program (NAIP). Using survey elevation data across 17 Pacific Coast tidal marshes, I demonstrated the utility of the Lidar Elevation Adjustment with NDVI (LEAN) technique to account for the positive bias in lidar due to vegetation. LEAN reduced error from an average of 23.1 cm to 7.2 cm root mean squared error and removed the positive bias caused by vegetation. This increase in accuracy will facilitate more accurate assessments of current and future vulnerability to sea-level rise. The phenology of aboveground biomass in tidal marsh plants in relation to climate variation has not been explored in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). In Chapter 3 I explain how I leveraged the Landsat archive and cloud computing capabilities to assess how Tasseled Cap Greenness (TCG, a proxy for aboveground biomass) in three PNW tidal marshes has responded to recent variation in climate to characterize sensitivity to climate change. Through analysis of over 3700 Landsat images obtained from 1984-2015, I found increased annual precipitation resulted in a higher peak TCG, while warmer May temperatures resulted in an earlier day of peak TCG. These results also demonstrate how time-series analysis of remote sensing data can be used to examine the sensitivity of tidal marsh plants to climate variability and directional change. The range of variation in tidal marsh accretion rates has not been characterized across the PNW. For Chapter 4, I collected and analyzed twenty-two soil cores from eight estuaries to estimate historic accretion rates with radioisotope dating techniques and evaluated the amount and source of variation across estuaries. I found that tidal marshes across the PNW had accretion rates greater than the current rate of sea-level rise, ranging from 2.3 – 7.3 mm yr⁻¹. Using a watershed-scale analysis, I found that long-term average annual fluvial discharge was the top predictor of tidal marsh accretion rates. Additionally, I found that calibrating the Wetland Accretion Rate Model for Ecosystem Resilience (WARMER) with accretion rate data from nearby estuaries can result in uncertainties of up to 41% (50 cm) after 100 years. Finally, in Chapter 5, I demonstrate that a range of 62 cm of error is possible in WARMER models after a 100 year simulation when both uncorrected lidar and non-local accretion rates are used, fundamentally changing the interpretation of the results. Altogether, this dissertation illustrates the importance of collecting site-specific wetland vegetation and elevation data and demonstrates how lidar and multispectral remote sensing data can be leveraged to improve our understanding of how climate variability and change impacts coastal ecosystems

Initial results from the Caltech/DRSI balloon-borne isotope experiment

The Caltech/DSRI balloonborne High Energy Isotope Spectrometer Telescope (HEIST) was flown successfully from Palestine, Texas on 14 May, 1984. The experiment was designed to measure cosmic ray isotopic abundances from neon through iron, with incident particle energies from approx. 1.5 to 2.2 GeV/nucleon depending on the element. During approximately 38 hours at float altitude, 100,000 events were recorded with Z or = 6 and incident energies approx. 1.5 GeV/nucleon. We present results from the ongoing data analysis associated with both the preflight Bevalac calibration and the flight data