2006 Use Statistics for Virginia Fruit Page

The Virginia Fruit Home Page received 14,175 visits from January through December 2006, based on numbers acquired from the Department of Entomology server for actual requests (not in-page counters). But such visits to the home page itself represents only the tip of the iceburg. Altogether there were 801,973 visits to pages within this web site in 2006, a maximum since the site went on-line in 1997, and a 42% increase from the previous year.

Of the fruit crops represented in the Virginia Fruit Page, the Grape site received the most use for the seventh year (11,591 visits), followed by the Apple Page (8,069 visits) and Peach Page (5,445 visits), Small Fruit (4,402 visits) surpassing the Pear Page (3,935 visits) for the first time.

Within the Apple Page, biological information on pests, predators and bees received much interest. The Apple IPM page received 6,585 visits, and pages associated with Direct Pests 41,770 visits, Indirect Pests 36,869 visits, and Orchard Predators 31,216 visits. This provides a complement to the West Virginia page, which has an emphasis on disease management.  Among grape pests, those causing direct injury received 15,610 visits, and 57,301 for those causing indirect injury.

The dozen leading pest species across fruit crops whose pages were visited were (in decreasing order) stink bugs, Japanese beetle, codling moth, plum curculio, European red mite, green June beetle, periodical cicada, oriental fruit moth, tarnished plant bug, grape phylloxera, spirea aphid, and San Jose scale.

The site continues to be used by both commercial and home fruit producers, reflected by use statistics for pages based on Virginia Tech pest management recommendations. There were 51,765 visits to pages associated with the Spray Bulletin for Commercial Tree Fruit Growers (39% Apple, 31% Peach and Nectarine, 11% Pear, 11% Cherry, 8% Plum), 3,943 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Commercial Vineyards, 8,710 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Commercial Small Fruit (41% Strawberry, 29% Blueberry, 30% Caneberry), and 24,822 visits to pages associated with the Spray Guide for Home Fruit (33% Apple and Pear, 22% Grape, 15% Stone Fruit, 12% Blueberry, 9% Caneberry, 8% Strawberry). (In the VCE website, the PDF version of the commercial tree fruit guide received 63,094 visits, the commercial vineyard site received 4,315 visits, the commercial small fruit guide received 1,865 visits, and the home fruit guide received 9,745 visits).

A new section deals with the use of Personal Digital Assistants to distribute fruit IPM information.  The page describing this project (Virginia Fruit AdVisor: PDAs as Extension Delivery Tools) received 1,267 visits.  But the total visits for pages associated with the project were 43,903.

A new section, created in cooperation with the North American Bramble Growers Association, received 15,202 visits.

Send comments by e-mail to: Douglas G. Pfeiffer