Producer Adoption and Economic Impact in Texas of the Belt-Wide Pecan ipmPIPE Program

The Pecan ipmPIPE Program has been operational throughout the Pecan Belt for four growing seasons. During this period, new interactive deliverables including near real time, locally relevant risk assessment tools for major pests, educational materials useful in conducting best management practices, a pecan library, pesticide search engines, and an interactive database have been developed and made available to the public using the Internet. Using metrics from several sources shows that similar to 50% of Texas pecan producers have readily adopted this new technology; producers from other states are shown to behave similarly, albeit fewer metrics were available for comparison. The annual economic impact in Texas is estimated to be $1 million, which is expected to increase 2-3 fold if similar metrics were available to assess this belt-wide. The program is expected to increase in value to stakeholders as more producer adoption occurs and as Internet tools become increasingly sophisticated. The need for professional information technology expertise on the scientific team, rather than just technical support, is addressed as a current challenge if this new approach is to continue to best serve agriculture and the public.