Provide statewide leadership for the extension cotton IPM program; extension responsibility for management of soybean and corn insects in piedmont and mountains of North Carolina. Develop and implement arthropod management programs on cotton via education of county extension field faculty, growers, independent crop consultants and agribusiness personnel. Primary goals include teaching the biology and field identification of pests and beneficial arthropods, educating clientele on the efficacy, timing and proper use of pesticides and the integration of new scouting threshold and biotechnology information into ongoing IPM programs. Research and Demonstration Develop an effective, inexpensive and sustainable approach to managing cotton insects in North Carolina. Research emphasis has been on: pest monitoring (for example, annual large-scale damaged boll surveys for our major late-season boll damaging pests - the bollworm, European corn borer (ECB), stink bugs and fall armyworms). transgenic cotton (determination of the conditions under which transgenic Bt [Bollgard] cotton is profitable for North Carolina growers) threshold development (establish thresholds for various insect pests of conventional and genetically altered cotton) traditional insect control (evaluation of the efficacy of standard and new insecticides, and the utility of various biological and cultural methods of pest management, including habital manipulation).