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 College
Job Leads to Lifetime Career for Extension Entomologist
Auburn, Dec. 11,
2003 ---
Dr. John McVay’s lifelong fascination with insects started quite by
accident while he was an undergraduate at Florence State University
(now the University of North Alabama) working toward a degree in
zoology and history.
The Colbert County
native spent a summer working for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s
mosquito management program and was overcome with a passionate
interest in insects. It wasn’t long before he settled on a career
path working with insects.
After his
graduation in 1973, McVay enrolled at Auburn University to pursue a
master’s in microbiology and pathology with a concentration in insect
pathology, earning his degree in 1975. His first job was working as
an insect pathologist with ChemAgro in Vero Beach, Fla., managing the
company’s rearing facility and undertaking field research in
pesticides.
Later in his
career, he also earned a doctorate in entomology from Oklahoma State
University.
He returned to
Auburn in 1976 as an entomologist with the then-Alabama Cooperative
Extension Service. Extension had recently secured a federal grant to
develop an integrated pest management program for the state’s pecan
industry --- an more environmentally friendly approach for controlling
pecan pests.
McVay’s efforts
have produced tremendous results for the environment and pecan growers
alike.
Insecticide usage
on pecan trees dropped from an average of between 10 and 14
applications each year to around two or three. Alabama’s pecan IPM
program was the first such undertaking in the country and has served
as a model for other states. More recently, McVay has helped develop
a similar program for the state’s apple growers.
The program’s
resounding success surprised even McVay..
“Our goal
originally simply was to manage insect pests in the best way we knew
how,” McVay said. “It just turned out that there was a lot of
spraying that wasn’t necessary.”
The development of
better management tools, coupled with the advent in recent years of
more environmentally friendly, low-impact insecticides, have also
helped, he said.
“The insecticides
we’re using are targeted specifically to the pest and don’t impact
other species.”
Most important of
all, McVay said, is that they don’t affect beneficial insects, which
assist pecan growers by feeding on common foliar pests.
McVay, who will
end his 27-year career with his retirement in December, considers his
greatest professional accomplishment not only safeguarding the
environment but keeping pecan growers profitable in an era of mounting
operating costs.
“It has helped.
Their overall cost of production has gone out of site since I’ve been
here, but their prices have not. So it’s helping them remain
profitable.”
[Writer: Jim
Langcuster, Extension Communications Specialist, News and Public
Affairs, (334) 844-5686.]
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