Laurie McBride Receives 2011 Excellence in IPM Award

Laurie McBride, an Agriculture Stewardship Technician with CCE of Suffolk County, is the recipient of the 2011 Excellence in IPM Award from Cornell University. IPM--Integrated Pest Management--focuses on helping growers learn the least toxic ways to manage pests.

Among Laurie's most important contributions is her work with growers to manage “Q biotype” whiteflies on poinsettias, a major wholesale crop in Long Island. This serious pest stunts and deforms poinsettias, carries diseases—and a greenhouse is boomtown for whiteflies. But a tiny, pinprick-sized wasp, a “biocontrol,” eats whiteflies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  In one greenhouse alone, McBride helped a grower eliminate pesticides on 27,000 square feet of poinsettias.

Laurie received her award at Cornell University’s Plant Science Day and Barbecue on September 8, held at the Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center in Riverhead. Congratulations to Laurie on this impressive achievement.