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Plant Health

Center for Plant Health Science and Technology


CPHST Biloxi Station, Biloxi, Mississippi

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Location: 1818 Popps Ferry Rd. Biloxi, MS 39532
Phone: (228) 385-9278
Fax: (228) 285-9280
Contact: Anne-Marie Callcott

The CPHST Biloxi Station oversees and coordinates routine analytical chemistry and imported fire ant (IFA) methods development. Routine pesticide residue analysis of environmental monitoring samples from PPQ domestic programs are currently outsourced to an external lab. The station oversees the program, acts as a liaison with PPQ staff, and provides quality assurance reviews and audits. IFA methods and tools are developed with collaborators for survey, detection, regulation, and chemical and biological control of the IFA. The primary focus of this work is on developing quarantine treatment options for growers who move nursery stock and other regulated articles outside the Federal quarantine area, with the current emphasis on grass sod and field-grown nursery stock treatments. The station also supports the rearing and distribution of phorid flies, an IFA biological control agent, to States.

 

Recent Accomplishments

  • Continued an interagency agreement with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection to develop a model to determine the origins of mangoes by isotope analysis.
  • Continued the APHIS-funded phorid fly (Pseudacteon spp.) rearing and release program to support IFA control efforts, with multiple releases of a third fly species, P. obtusus, and the first releases of a fourth species, P. cultellatus. The first two species released, P. tricuspis and P. curvatus, are now established in more than 50 percent of the IFA quarantined area.
  • Label changes on Onyx Pro® Insecticide (bifenthrin) were completed to include an application rate effective on IFA in grass sod as a quarantine treatment. When a new environmental assessment for IFA is completed, this treatment will be added to the Treatment Manual. This will provide growers with a treatment that does not include chlorpyrifos, which is difficult to find due to growing EPA restrictions on its use.
  • Initiated development of a cold treatment for IFA in bulk soil with a focus on contaminated soils destined for burial. Successful cold treatment in small containers in a lab setting was verified in tests conducted in full-sized refrigerated containers through a cooperative agreement with the University of Tennessee.

 

Last Modified: April 4, 2013