Fred Steele, president of the British Columbia Fruit Grower’s Association said about the OKSIR program in his letter of support for the nomination, “The Okanagan-Kootenay Sterile Insect Release program is an asset for both our pome fruit growers and the residents of the valleys that live near and amongst the orchards.” He also noted, “The success of the program has led to other local fruit industries, including cherry and grape growers, expressing interest in applying the area-wide approach to their own pests.”
The Okanagan-Kootenay Sterile Insect Release (OKSIR) Program has been nominated for a prestigious Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Achievement Award, to be awarded this spring at the 8th International IPM Symposium being held in Salt Lake City, Utah, March 23-26.
The OKSIR program has been successfully controlling codling moths in the apple and pear growing areas of the Okanagan and Similkameen areas for the last 20+ years. The program has been garnering a lot of international interest from areas and companies looking to recreate its success with codling moths (USA, New Zealand, France), or looking to use its approaches with other pests (Switzerland, France).
The program operates from Salmon Arm to Osoyoos, and into the Similkameen Valley, and is led by the General Manager, Cara Nelson. “It’s an honour to be formally recognized by the international integrated pest management community,” she states. “Our whole valley can be proud of the OKSIR program—not just for the amount of pesticides kept out of the environment because the program is in place, but also for the support it provides for our fruit growers, who are important to our local economy and our Okanagan way of life.”
Since the beginning of the program, the amount of pesticides used against codling moth has been reduced by 96%. Many orchardists in the valley have not had to spray their trees for codling moth for the last 15 years. If a chemical spray is required, most growers need only use a single well-timed application, instead of the three or more they needed prior to the program’s implementation