Mar 9, 2020

Mid-Atlantic Convention deemed a success by organizers

About 1,800 growers and other fruit and vegetable industry members – plus 400 exhibitor representatives – met at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pennsylvania, for the 43th annual meeting of fruit and vegetable growers in the mid-Atlantic.

The educational program for the the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention held Jan. 28-30 featured speakers from across the nation along with more than 160 exhibitors at the trade show.

Todd Hunt of the Hunt Co. presented the keynote address on “Communication Bleeps and Blunders in Business.” The convention also included the annual Grower Banquet, Apple Grower Reception and Ice Cream Social along with other receptions sponsored by individual companies.

Growers who missed the convention are able to purchase the proceedings that contains summaries of many of the presentations in the vegetable, greenhouse, small fruit and marketing sessions. Those interested can send a check for $20 to the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association (PVGA) at 815 Middle Road, Richfield, PA 17086 or they can be ordered online on the event’s website, www.mafvvc.org.

Each year the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association gives its annual award to an individual who has a long-standing record of service and dedication to the vegetable, potato and/or berry industry or the association.

This year’s annual award and a life membership in the association were presented to Shelby Fleischer, professor of entomology at Penn State University (PSU) for his 29 years of serving the vegetable growers of Pennsylvania as the vegetable Extension entomologist.

The presentation was made during the annual Fruit and Vegetable Growers Banquet on Jan. 28.

2020 Annual Award

“The association is pleased to present its 2020 Annual Award and a life membership in the association to Dr. Shelby Fleischer for this long-standing record of outstanding service and dedication to the vegetable growers of Pennsylvania and to the association,” said PVGA President Jonathan Strite.

A native of Washington, D.C., Fleischer attended St. Mary’s College in Maryland where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology. According to information released by the event organizers, Fleischer attended Virginia Tech for his master’s degree and went on to Auburn University for his doctorate – both degrees in entomology. He worked as a research associate at Auburn before returning to Virginia Tech as a research scientist from 1987 to 1991. In 1991, he started at PSU as an assistant professor with a research and Extension appointment in entomology.

Fleischer served as a grants panel member for regional and national integrated pest management (IPM) programs, the Methyl Bromide Transitions Program, the Biotechnology Risk Assessment Grants Program, and on an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel. He has been an invited symposium speaker at the French Association of Plant Biotechnology, multiple land-grant university seminars, multiple symposia organized by the Entomological Society of America and a plenary speaker at the Eastern Branch of this society.

He received the Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension from the Eastern Branch of the Entomological Society of America in 2011.

Fleischer’s more than 100 research publications with over 3,400 citations focus on the structure, dynamics and management of insect populations and communities in agroecosystems. He was a team member in the analysis that demonstrated area-wide reductions of European corn borer from adoption of Bt-maize, which influenced the debate about the risks, benefits and regional scale implications of using transgenes in agriculture.

His work involving neonicotinoids as seed treatments is receiving increased attention due to effects on bees. Recent work is demonstrating the ability of wild bee communities to achieve the ecosystem service of pollination in the earth’s agroecosystems. Managing insects that vector plant pathogens has been a research focus, with diabroticites that vector bacterial pathogens in cucurbits and aphid-vectored viruses in legumes.

Fleischer’s Extension activities focus on IPM in vegetable crops, with a priority on advancing economically feasible management that improves worker and environmental safety. His sampling plans have been adopted in alfalfa and hardwood forests in the U.S., and leafy greens in the Caribbean.

The PestWatch web-mapping platform Fleischer initiated in 1998 for sweet corn IPM was used by 15 PSU Extension educators in 2019. Data flowed from 32 sites distributed among 22 counties in Pennsylvania, plus sites in Minnesota, New York, Delaware, Virginia and Maryland.

Now a full professor, he has traveled the state speaking to vegetable growers at numerous local meetings over the last 29 years helping them learn how to control their insect pests – both the common ones affecting sweet corn and cucurbit crops, but also the new arrivals like the allium leafminer. He has also helped growers evaluate new technologies like Bt sweet corn and neonicotinoids and as well as developing the sweet corn insect monitoring network many growers use each year to time their spray schedules.

He and his wife Barbara have two daughters and three grandchildren.

Leadership changes hands

Brian Campbell was elected as the new president of PVGA after the association’s annual Meeting at the 2020 Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention. He succeeds Jonathan Strite who will assume the office of past president. Rita Resick was elected first vice president and Peter Flynn was tabbed to be second vice president. William Reynolds was re-elected secretary-treasurer.

Also at the annual meeting, the results of the balloting for members of the board of directors was announced. Christopher Harner, Christopher Powell, John Shenk, Jeffery Stoltzfus and Joel Weaver were elected to three-year terms on the board by the members in the mail-in balloting while Rita Resick was selected by the board.

All but Weaver are incumbent members of the board. Each year, the members elect five members of the board and the board selects one additional director – chosen to insure diversity, geographic representation and/or special expertise on the board.

— Gary Pullano, managing editor; top photo: From left, Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding, Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association President Jonathan Strite, Shelby Fleischer and Penn State University Director of Extension Brent Hales. Photos: Gary Pullano