Blair Sampson Research Interests

Small Fruits & Vegetable Crop Pollination and Native bee management

• Managing Blue Orchard Bees (Osmia ribifloris) for commercially pollinating blueberries.
  Cooperator: James H. Cane
• Bumble bee management for pollinating greenhouse fruits and vegetables  
• Pollination biology and requirements of wild and cultivated small fruits and vegetable crops.  
• Honey bee pollination of small fruits and vegetables.
  Cooperator: Robert Danka http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=1258

Integrated Pest Management and other related Interests

• Taxonomy, ecology and conservation of endoparasitic wasps (e.g. Eulophidae, Ceraphronidae, Platygasteridae) associated with the blueberry gall midge complex (Dasineura oxycoccana, Prodiplosis vaccinii). Cooperators:
  Michael Schauff http://www.sel.barc.usda.gov/selhome/selhome.htm
  Oscar Liburd http://fruitnvegipm.ifas.ufl.edu
   
• Field efficacy trials for reduced-risk insecticides useful in small fruit and vegetable IPM programs. Cooperator:
  Oscar Liburd http://fruitnvegipm.ifas.ufl.edu/
   
• Screening and developing botanical and mineral-based pesticides for control of nursery, greenhouse and field pests in IPM & Organic production systems. Cooperators:
  David Wedge, Nurhayat Tabanca (Anadolu University, Turkey)
  Jerry McLaughlin (Nature's Sunshine Products)
  Fumiomi Takeda, Michael Glenn  
   
• Organic and Community Sustained Agriculture (CSA)
   
• Scientific Illustration

Civic Program

• Teaching children and adults the importance of insects with the help of a living arthropod zoo and other entomological exhibits (local school visits, environmental workshops, career days, and in-house tours).