Of the fruit crops represented in the Virginia Fruit Page, the Grape site received the most use (8,943 visits, passing apple for the third year in a row), followed by the Apple Page (7,074 visits) and Peach Page (4,993 visits), Small Fruit (3,768 visits) and finally Pear Pages (3,574 visits).
Within the Apple Page, biological information on pests, predators and bees received much interest. The Apple IPM page received 6,269 visits, and pages associated with Direct Pests 32,568 visits, Indirect Pests 33,316 visits, and Orchard Predators 24,609 visits. This provides a complement to the West Virginia page, which has an emphasis on disease management. Among grape pests, those causing direct injury received 14,535 visits, and 32,535 for those causing indirect injury.
The dozen leading pest species across fruit crops whose pages were visited were (in decreasing order) Japanese beetle, European red mite, stink bugs, plum curculio, tarnished plant bug, green June beetle, oriental fruit moth, spirea aphid, codling moth, cicada, apple maggot and rose chafer.
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 32,731 visits to pages associated with the Spray Bulletin for Commercial Tree Fruit Growers (72% Apple, 15% Peach and Nectarine, 5% Pear, 4% Cherry, 4% Plum), 5,678 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Commercial Vineyards, 4,919 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Commercial Small Fruit (44% Strawberry, 29% Caneberry, 27% Blueberry), and 17,798 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Home Fruit (31% Apple and Pear, 20% Grape, 17% Stone Fruit, 16% Blueberry, 8% Caneberry, 8% Strawberry).
Send comments by e-mail to: Douglas G. Pfeiffer