IPM's Trac© Software helps over 300 fruit farmers in NY preserve and expand market access. Trac creates required crop spray records for market assurance and traceability. Embedded with crucial EPA pesticide label information, Trac instantly prepares the EPA Worker Protection form with safe-to-enter dates and times, promoting the safety of informed field workers.

Fruit farmers face increasing need to produce crop protection and production records on demand. Pesticide records are required by the EPA Worker Protection Standard, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), processors, marketers, etc. Each different reporting form, required by law or by markets must be filled out by farmers, making accurate record-keeping an unnecessarily burdensome task. As more consumers actively seek products with eco-labels, those grown without pesticides, those produced in an environmentally sound manner, or those produced under sustainable practices, the onus will be on the farmer, processor, and marketer to show auditors that such practices were indeed used. Furthermore, accurate crop protection and production records are critically important to the farmer, particularly when pest or disease control failures or severe outbreaks occur. Computerized records allow farmers to review pest management practices. Trac software for fruit crops successfully addresses these issues and farmers continue to request development and improvement of Trac Software. Trac Software has been in use since 2003, therefore a survey of Trac Software users was needed.

Farmers enter spray data once and Trac Software automatically generates pesticide spray reports formatted as required by all the major processors, buyers, and brokers of fruit in the Northeast. Trac software has drop-down lists for pesticides and pests, saving time and preventing typographical errors. The software generates drop-down lists specific to the user's farm business. The v2006 software contains up-to-date pesticide information. When a pesticide trade name is selected from the drop down list the program automatically fills in the EPA registration number, restricted entry interval, pre-harvest interval, and calculates the earliest harvest date. In 2006, programming was improved, including an Add More Rows button, a customizable, dynamically-generated chemical table drop down list and a Print button on the EPA Worker Protection Standard Form. The Print button prepares the EPA form with a single safe-to-enter date at the top calculated from among the restricted entry intervals of all the selected applications, promoting the safety of informed field workers. Trac Software v2006 upgrades (copyright Cornell University) were released on CD with software license agreement, Trac Manual and Getting Started directions. Centerra Wine Company collaborated in distributing 130 TracGrape CDs. TracApple, TracPear, TracGrape, TracBerry, TracStoneFruit, and TracCherry v2006 software were released in 2006, covering all major fruit crops grown in New York.

Trac Software effectively streamlines record-keeping and reporting for fruit farmers. In 2006, 95 copies of TracApple (includes TracPear on the CD), 168 copies of TracGrape, 43 copies of TracStoneFruit (includes TracCherry on the CD) and 24 copies of TracBerry were distributed to interested farmers in New York and in 22 other states. Apple growers using TracApple are able to generate their yearly pesticide records within 24 hours of the onerous Eurepgap certification audits and sail through this portion of the audit. Growers using the software find it easy to use and to review their crop production and protection data in Trac. Farmers can quickly print and post the EPA Worker Protection form to alert their farm workers about sprays on their orchards, vineyards and fields. Only 6% of users contact us for technical support. Trac software provides a simple answer to bringing more farmers into the computer age and digitizing New York's agricultural industry, promoting traceability and food assurance. Growers able to easily review computerized records can compare practices from year to year, track costs and harvests, better manage their farm businesses, make more informed IPM decisions, and ultimately create a solid foundation for farm sustainability. A survey of Trac Software v2006 users was developed in December 2006 and conducted in January 2007 by the Cornell Survey Research Institute to ascertain the impact of Trac Software on fruit farms.

Centerra Wine Company

Kevin Walsh (Computer Science)