Starting on April 13, the UW-Madison Eco-Fruit Project will offer another season of free weekly conference calls with IPM consultant John Aue and other IPM experts.
Why would I want to listen in?
These calls will help you to know what to watch out for, will answer your pressing questions, and will give you an idea of what other growers are doing. At the start of each call, John Aue provides a comprehensive review of pest trends and activity in orchards. Next, he answers growers’ questions about pest and disease management issues. He also asks growers to talk about their own strategies for managing pests. John Aue has provided IPM consulting services to apple growers in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota for over 20 years.
We are lining up a great list of guest experts to participate on the calls this year:
- UW plant pathologist Patty McManus will join us to talk about disease management;
- Cornell IPM specialist Julie Carroll will join us to talk about Trac recordkeeping software;
- Organic grower and author Michael Phillips will join us to talk about orchard health;
- MSU horticulturalist Phillip Schwallier will join us to talk about thinning;
- MSU entomologist Larry Gut will join us to talk about codling moth;
- Other guest experts are in the works.
What is the call schedule?
The calls will happen from 8 to 9 am Central time on Mondays from April 13 through August 10. There will be no call on July 6. We will also hold one post-season conference call in late fall; date and time TBA.
How do I call in?
To call in, dial 218-844-0840, then enter this access code: 516817
Submitting questions prior to the call:
John will give priority to questions received prior to the conference call. Please submit your questions to John by 10 pm the night before each call. Preferably, please e-mail your questions to John at . If you do not have access to the internet, you can call John with your questions at 608-604-0234.
What does it cost?
The only cost associated with calling is your normally incurred long-distance charge. If you have free long distance, then these calls are completely free.
Other helpful numbers for listening to the call live:
- press *6 to mute your line. press *6 again to un-mute your line.
- customer help line: 877-482-5838
What if I can’t make the call at 8am on Monday?
If you can’t make the live calls, there are three ways to listen to recordings of the Eco-Apple IPM conference calls:
1. To hear the most recent call recording over the phone: Dial: 218-844-0950, then enter this access code: 516817
2. To access an archive of all call recordings over the phone: Dial: 641-715-3800, then enter this access code: 28864
3. To download call recordings:
- You will need access to the Apple Talk blog. Contact Samuel Pratsch, at or 608-265-3637 if you have lost your login and password for Apple Talk.
- Once you have a login and password, you can access the blog at www.thinkipm.org/appletalk.
- From the blog’s main page, click on the “conference calls” link (which you’ll see on the left hand side). You will then see summaries for a couple of different conference call series.
- Click on the summary you want, then scroll down to download the audio recording.
