Pennsylvania Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education (PA PIPE)

The Pennsylvania Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education (PA PIPE) has been developed as a collaborative effort between Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences faculty and ZedX, Inc. to provide an early warning system for key pests attacking crops.

The PA PIPE is divided into:

• weather data
• crops
• disease
• insects
• weeds

The weather data provided includes:

• accumulative ambient degree days
• deviation from normal ambient degree days
• two inch soil degree day accumulations
• deviation from normal for two inch soil degree days.

In the other sections, forecasts are provided for the most advanced corn and soybean stage of development, conditions conducive to disease, timing on key insect life stages or percentage into a key life stage, and percentage emergence of key weed species. The system is not intended to be used to make important economic management decisions, but to help target the timing and need to monitor more closely for key pests.

For more detailed information on what is being provided for each pest, click on the “Help” button in the upper right-hand corner of the screen after entering the site. If you need further interpretation, contact your local County Extension Office or the Penn State Academic Department (i.e. Entomology, Plant Pathology, or Crops and Soils Science).

Once you access the site you will see state maps that display the important information about a pest, crop or weather variable. These maps are provided at a 6 km² resolution and are updated using current weather data daily. In addition, you can view maps of up to seven day forecasts (dates in dark blue) or look back in time (dates in white) using the calendar in the upper left-hand side of the site.

Tools

Tools are found in the bar above the maps. You will see:

• - a magnifying glass with a "+" to increase magnification
• - a magnifying glass with a "-" to decrease magnification
• - a hand to move the map within the window
• - a world globe to return to the original magnification
• - a black circle with an "i" in it and an arrow to obtain more information on a map location. This icon only applies to the potato early and late blight sites.

Potato Blight Sites

There are 19 locations in the state that provide guideline for spray applications. To access the spray guideline you need to first click on the "black circle with the I" and then click on the blue circles on the map. Another feature in the bar above the maps is “Ref. Layers”. This is to add a reference layer such as cities, interstates, county names, and/or PA zip code). These references are useful when using the zoom magnification tools.