Matching innovations with potential users, a case study of potato IPM practices

Through interviews and mail surveys, Ohio potato (Solanum tuberosum) growers were surveyed concerning their willingness to adopt three cultural controls being developed for management of the Colorado potato beetle, Leptinotarsa decemlineata (Say), which had become increasingly difficult to control. The principal objective of the research was to obtain a deeper understanding of how farmers make decisions to adopt or not adopt new techniques and how these decisions are related to farmers' educational backgrounds and the way they currently manage their farms. The three cultural management options emphasized ecological approaches to habitat management rather than ecologically disruptive chemical control: (1) using host plants in overwintering sites to slow the spring movement of the beetles to potato fields, (2) using larger potato plants at field borders than in the center of the field as a spring trap crop, and (3) concentrating beetles in relatively small undefoliated areas to be killed with heat in late summer. Most respondents would not adopt these alternative pest management strategies, mainly because they perceived an unsatisfactory trade-off between logistic difficulties and expenses and population suppression they would achieve compared with traditional chemical control measures. Education correlated positively and experience in farming negatively with the willingness to try new pest management techniques. Additionally, growers responding more negatively to questions regarding integrated pest management strategies were more willing to experiment with the alternative techniques, a result attributed to either the survey design or an indication of experience with the more intensive management effort required for integrated pest management. This profile of potential innovators should be used by researchers to establish partnerships with farmers that could assist with both the research and development of new farming techniques and the adoption of successful systems by other farmers.