Continuing the Drone & IPM Conversation: OPMC Launches Its First Winter Webinar

The Ontario Pest Management Conference (OPMC) is excited to announce its first Winter Webinar, a FREE event open to all interested in the latest advances in pest control.

Pest control in large-acre organic crop systems faces a major challenge: how to apply natural enemies evenly and efficiently across vast fields. Traditional methods require significant labor to release these beneficial insects or predators, which limits their use. To address this, growers in Washington State have started using drones to distribute pest predators in organic apple orchards. This new approach could transform integrated pest management (IPM) by making biocontrol more practical and scalable.

The upcoming webinar features Dr. Rebecca Schmidt-Jeffris, Research Entomologist from the US Department of Agriculture in Wapato, Washington. She will share insights from her research on drone applications for releasing pest predators, highlighting both the benefits and challenges of this innovative technique.

Learn more about Dr. Rebecca Schmidt-Jeffris and her upcoming presentation here.

What You Will Learn in the Webinar

Dr. Schmidt-Jeffris will explain how drone application helps overcome the labor-intensive nature of biocontrol in large-scale organic orchards.

Key points include:

• How drones can deliver natural enemies with more even coverage across crops
• The survival rates of pest predators when released by drone compared to manual methods
• Best practices for adapting drone releases to orchard environments
• Challenges such as ensuring target-site delivery and protecting the often costly natural enemies during flight

Integrated pest management relies on combining multiple tactics to control pests sustainably. Biocontrol, the use of natural enemies like predatory insects, plays a crucial role in reducing pesticide reliance. However, applying these beneficial organisms evenly over large fields has been a barrier to wider adoption.

Drone application offers a promising solution by:

• Reducing labor costs and time required for releases
• Increasing the precision and consistency of pest predator distribution
• Potentially improving pest control outcomes in organic and conventional systems

How to Join the Webinar

This event is free, but registration is required.

To secure your spot, register here:

After registering, you will receive a link to join the Zoom webinar.