The field crop pest management group at the UK-REC, developed a 5-week webinar series in November and December of 2020 in topics including Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science. All these events in 2020 were conducted using zoom due to COVID-19 restrictions on in-person events. These events were planned to provide stakeholders with research-based pest management information, and also provide Certified Crop Advisor continuing education credits, Agent In-service training, and pesticide applicator training to clientele. Webinar series speakers and topics included Dr. Kiersten Wise, “New ways to manage old diseases in corn;” Dr. Carl Bradley, “What lies beneath: Management of sudden death syndrome and soybean cyst nematode;” Dr. Raul T. Villanueva and Zenaida Viloria, “Geographic expansion of the brown marmorated stink bug in Kentucky;” Dr. JD Green, “Selecting the right herbicide tolerant crop traits and the right herbicides applied at the right time;” and Dr. Travis Legleiter, “Tackling top 5 weeds of the Mid-South.” These webinars were hosted by the Southern IPM Center and had over 200 attendees in total. In addition to local stakeholder and Agent attendees, each webinar had national and international attendees, and multiple people attended more than one webinar in the series. The series will be repeated in 2021 due to high demand and requests for similar trainings.

Partial funding for these studies were provided by the Kentucky Soybean Board.