Of the fruit crops represented in the Virginia Fruit Page, the Grape site received the most use (6,075 visits, passing apple for the first time), followed by the Apple Page (5,714 visits) and Peach Page (4,006 visits), Small Fruit (2,970 visits) and finally Pear Pages (2,662 visits).
Within the Apple Page, biological information on pests, predators and bees received much interest. The Apple IPM page received 2,685 visits, Direct Pests 1,055 visits, Indirect Pests 707 visits, and Orchard Predators 600 visits. This provides a complement to the West Virginia page, which has an emphasis on disease management.
The dozen leading pest species whose pages were visited were (in decreasing order) Japanese beetle, apple grain aphid, European red mite, codling moth, plum curculio, oriental fruit moth, cicada, green June beetle, strawberry thrips, apple maggot, grape berry moth and climbing cutworms. The relative importance of internal feeders increased from 1999.
The site continues to be used by both commercial and home fruit producers, reflected by use statistics for pages based on Virginia Tech pest management recommendations. There were 16,994 visits to pages associated with the Spray Bulletin for Commercial Tree Fruit Growers (37% Apple, 26% Peach and Nectarine, 13% Plum, 12% Cherry, 12% Pear), 4,528 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Commercial Vineyards, 5,272 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Commercial Small Fruit (52% Strawberry, 25% Blueberry, 23% Caneberry), and 20,131 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Home Fruit (29% Apple and Pear, 22% Grape, 18% Stone Fruit, 13% Blueberry, 9% Caneberry, 9% Strawberry). While overall visits to these pages were up, the relative proportions of the crops was similar to 1999.
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