Pest Patrol Celebrates 10 Years

Even though growers know they’ll be battling pests each season, they don’t always know which ones will attack when. For 10 years, the Syngenta Pest Patrol program has given growers in the South advance warning and allowed them to focus on their fields, without fear of being caught unaware when threats arise.

Pest Patrol offers alerts on current pest threat levels, local area outbreak predictions, treatment recommendations and more from nearby university experts—all accessible via mobile devices and desktop computers. Phillip Roberts, Ph.D., an entomologist with the University of Georgia, says the program is invaluable to growers in his state.

“This past year gave us a prime example of its benefits,” he says. “We weren’t expecting silverleaf whitefly to be too much of a problem on cotton. But after two mild winters, their population built up, and Pest Patrol allowed us to make growers aware of the developing problem.”

Currently, the program is available in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. To sign up for Pest Patrol alerts, visit www.syngenta-us.com/pest-patrol and click on your state.