Integrated Wildlife Management For Sustainable Agriculture

Integrated Wildlife Management For Sustainable Agriculture

Summary

We are pleased to report that the wildlife deterrent system is operational — just in time to drain the sprinkler system for the winter. We have nick-named it The Guardian Project for Face Book recognition (Facebook.com/TheGuardian.2014).

Most of the time until now has been overcoming and refining design issues, procuring parts in an economical manner, installing power and water infrastructure, and lastly the actual laser units and sprinkler system. Although we departed from some of the conceptual design details, the system works in a manner consistent with the overall desired results (as far as the mechanics are concerned) and is a better design than previously conceived.

The system is poised to be quickly revived in the spring, and with some minor adjustments, be fully commissioned for its intended purpose.

Work this winter will be to complete the Face Book page development and plan/prepare to disseminate information. Part of that plan will be accomplished with the assistance of Jim Pierce with the Lincoln University Extension. Jim’s connections with local growers and producers will be of tremendous value. With Jim’s help, we will conduct field days to demonstrate the project and certainly entertain individual visits as they will most likely present themselves. Lincoln University’s publications are an avenue to reach beyond the local audience and will be available to use as appropriate. We need to more fully understand the opportunities to disseminate our program information through the SARE network and look forward to such.

The spring of 2015 will present the opportunity to evaluate the system in action. Last summer we experienced moderate crop damage, especially to Sweet Corn from wildlife damage. Considering this commodity is probably our biggest draw to the You-Pick, protection is of the utmost importance and is the heart of this project. It is our biggest draw because most local consumers don’t even attempt to grow Sweet Corn for the simple reason that is so susceptible to wildlife damage. It is our intention to develop this system into a valuable tool in defense of wildlife attack. It is not difficult to evaluate the performance of this system. Tracks are usually identifiable, damage or the lack thereof is obvious, and our game cameras should be able to capture attempted intrusion events.

We are excited to complete this project and see it in action. The last few months have been a fair amount of work and we are confident it will pay off. Please visit and “Like” the project at Facebook.com/TheGuardian.2014 and also http://www.Facebook.com/CarysYouPick.

We appreciate NCR-SARE’s vision and commitment to support our project and look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship for the good of our industry.

Scott Kelly

Objectives/Performance Targets

Accomplishments/Milestones

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Collaborators: