The Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education (PIPE) began as a USDA-initiated Internet-based response to the discovery of soybean rust in 2005 in Louisiana. The program activated interactions and informed soybean stakeholders (producers, advisors, scientists, industry, agencies, consumers and others) of disease risk posed by this pathogen in near real time throughout soybean fields across the nation in the 2006 and subsequent years to the present. The program was expanded in 2007 to include the soybean aphid in risk assessments in the soybean pest complex, and to key pests of other commodities (legumes, cucurbits and pecan) in 2008.

The Pecan ipmPIPE program was organized during 2008 and winter/spring of 2009 by scientists (S-1049) and pecan producers (Pecan ipmPIPE Producer Advisory Board with representatives from pecan producer organizations) to plan, develop and launch the initial Pecan ipmPIPE Web site in April 2009.

The organization/planning phase included poster and oral presentations by pecan scientists to introduce the program to pecan growers at annual meetings across the pecan belt.

The stakeholder organizational structure that resulted from this process is documented in papers presented in producer-oriented publications (i.e., Pecan Grower–Fall Issue 2008; Pecan South–April 2009). The organization now includes an extensive (120+) Pecan ipmPIPE producer network that provides near real-time information from the field on pecan nut casebearer, which is the target of Phase I risk assessment to aid decision making by producers.