Salvador Vitanza, Ph.D.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Vitanza’s work focuses on cotton, pecan and urban integrated pest management programs in El Paso and Hudspeth Counties, Texas. He conducts weekly field and orchard scouting to support his pecan and cotton programs. In cotton, he provides variety demonstrations and plant performance data (upland and pima), cotton root rot management, plant population demonstrations, cotton production workshops, and turn-row meetings.   In pecans, his efforts to promote IPM for pecan nut casebearer control have been very helpful to producers. He organizes a workshop for pecan IPM with emphasis on pecan nut casebearer and aphid management. Pecan aphid control demonstrations provide growers with up-to-date management information. He writes the newsletter “Issues in Agriculture” to provide advice and updates to local farmers. Dr. Vitanza supports urban pest management as well. He serves the public on pest identification and management. In addition, he conducts a pesticide applicator training which consistently attracts over 200 participants, many of whom are employees or owners of urban pest control companies. Currently, he monitors the advance of the subtropical tamarisk beetle as well as its impact on saltcedar stands and educates the community about this successful biocontrol program. He is often interviewed on local TV/radio stations on insect pest issues