September 2019 - 11

MSUE VEGETABLE NOTES
Midwest Veg Guide to be offered in digital format
By Ben Phillips
Michigan State University
and Dan Egel
Purdue University
The 2020 Midwest Vegetable
Production Guide for Commercial
Growers will have an updated online
component this year, and is slated for
release in December 2019.
Currently, the guide can be viewed
online at www.mwveguide.org as a
pdf. The updated website will allow
for specific crop, pest and control
selections.
In 2015, Michigan State University
educators polled vegetable and fruit
growers at winter meetings, and also
conducted an internal survey among
fruit and vegetable Extension staff.
In this survey, internet connectivity
was determined to be consistent and
fast for a digital resource for just
under half of the respondents, and
a selection of important pesticide
criteria was identified. Over 50% of
growers wanted the ability to search
by both single pests and crops and
multiple pests and crops, and to get
information on application rates,
preharvest intervals (PHI), re-entry
intervals (REI), mode of action
codes, and restricted use pesticide
(RUP) status.
In the spring of 2017, Ben Phillips
of MSU, and Dan Egel of Purdue
University, polled the Great Lakes
Vegetable Working Group (GLVWG)
about improving the online
version of the Midwest Vegetable
Production Guide for Commercial
Growers (mwveguide.org), which
is co-authored and edited by many
members of GLVWG. In this survey,
guide is formatted right now.
2. A grower can identify one pest,
then choose multiple crops to see
what control measures or pesticides
they can use across multiple crops
for the control of one pest, which
can help growers make effective
and economical pesticide selections
that can spread the cost of a control
across multiple crops.
3. A grower can identify one
control measure or pesticide, then
choose multiple crops to see all
the pests and crops that it can be
used on. The last option is one that
growers can use if they've already got
product in the shed and would like to
quickly see what it is effective on.
The user will then see a list of
A mock-up of how www.mwveguide.org will look in 2020.
90% of the respondents indicated
that they valued the Midwest
Vegetable Production Guide and were
supportive to changes to the website,
and some provided suggestions for
new web functionality.
Some suggestions were to make
it useable on all types of screens, to
include multiple user tracks, and
include information on greenhouse
use, organic-approved (OMRI) and
pollinator protection labeling. An
important feature for authors and
editors was the ability to use the data
framework to display the information
online for on-the-fly updates, and
also to output a typeset document
for the annual printed guide. So,
we would essentially be editing one
thing and getting three outputs:
an online searchable database, the
ability to print specific controls for
different pest and crop selections
and an annually printed guide with
everything in it.
With these ideas, we identified a
programmer in Indiana to help build
a relational database that contains
the recommendations in the Midwest
Vegetable Production Guide, and
host it on Purdue web space for free
access by growers in a format that is
friendly to all devices and computers.
We designed three user tracks for
approaching the tool, assuming that
the grower already knows what their
problem is.
1. A grower can identify one crop,
then choose multiple pests to see
what control measures or pesticides
they can use on those pests for that
crop, similar to how the printed
controls in alphabetical order with
their chemical name and mode of
action. Clicking on a control will
expand it to see the rate, application
notes, herbicide timing, PHI, REI,
RUP and OMRI status. This can be
even further expanded to review
respirator use, greenhouse use,
chemigation use and pollinator
protection information. Emergency
Section 18, and 24(c) special local
needs pesticides are also included.
The group's philosophy on pesticide
recommendations remains the
same in that all pests that appear
on a label will not always appear as
recommendations.
The project was made possible
by North Central Integrated Pest
Management Center, sponsored
by the USDA National Institute of
Food and Agriculture in addition to
generous contributions from state
grower associations from Michigan,
Indiana and Kansas. VGN
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VGN | SEPTEMBER 2019 | 11
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http://www.mwveguide.org http://www.mwveguide.org http://www.mwveguide.org
September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2019
