New 2nd edition of the Resource Guide for Organic Insect & Disease Management

The new 2^nd edition of Resource Guide for Vegetable Crops Organic Insect and Disease Management is now available from Cornell University.  Organic vegetable growers, or anyone interested in organic pest control alternatives, will find the manual useful. Download the pdf for free from the link above, or available as a hard copy for $20.
--Rick VanVranken

Kimberly Stoner from the Connecticut Ag Experiment Station provided this quick review:

Front section goes through different vegetable crops, with short descriptions of biology of the more common pests and diseases, including cultural controls. Then a section with photos of the pests and diseases. Then, fact sheets on each organic material – OMRI approved insecticides and fungicides – with information on active ingredient, how it works, OMRI listed products, effects on environment and human health, and summaries of efficacy data for use against different pests. This is tremendously valuable – it is hard to find efficacy data for organic materials. There are graphs with the number of trials for each pest and the rating of “good,” “fair,” or “poor” for efficacy in that trial.

Among the appendices is one that lists pests of vegetable crops for which we need more efficacy data.

I used the previous edition all the time in speaking with organic growers about which materials are likely to work against which pests. It is the best science-based information around for organic management of many pests and diseases.