The work of the consortium, which includes MSU, the University of California-Davis and researchers from several Central Asian nations, is funded by the US Agency for International Development’s Collaborative Research Support Program for Integrated Pest Management. Its goal: to increase crop production and diversity in Central Asia.

Today, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are working to promote crop diversity and alternative means of pest management. Integrated pest management researchers from MSU and UC-Davis, have traveled to those countries since 2004 to promote biological means of controlling pests and to learn new techniques.

“The next phase of work will develop systems of ecologically-based IPM practices for Central Asia’s key food security crops – wheat, potatoes and tomatoes,” said Karim Maredia, MSU professor of entomology and project leader. “An important part of the project will be capacity building of expertise in the region to extend the knowledge gained from the project long after it is over.”

The project will establish collaborative research and demonstration sites for each of the crops for training IPM professionals, local farmers and students. The team also will contribute to the instruction of more than 20 graduate students at central Asian universities. Three young scientists from the region are being identified for doctoral fellowships to earn degrees at MSU and UC-Davis, with research conducted in their home countries and with the international agricultural research centers working in the region.

“One of the strengths that helped us earn the grant renewal,” said Maredia “was the strong network we have developed in Central Asia through our project.”

The project employs three post-doctoral researchers who lead activities based in their home countries and connect those efforts to the expertise at MSU and UC-Davis, and the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas. Two other international research centers, five government research institutions, four nongovernmental organizations and four central Asian universities are participating in activities of the next phase.

“We’ll also be taking MSU’s expertise at extension and helping these countries adapt it for their own purposes,” said Joy Landis, of the MSU IPM Program. “Extension will ensure their new research findings are available to the farmers who can use them.”

Along with Maredia and Landis, the US-based team includes at MSU entomologists George Bird, Doug Landis and Walter Pett; crop and soil science professor David Douches; and Frank Zalom, professor of entomology at UC-Davis.

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