Most downloaded files: Sixty files in PDF format are available at the Kearneysville Web Site.  Most of these are pdf versions of the disease fact sheets. The Virginia Home Orchard Management Guide was downloaded over 10,000 times. A Plant Disease Feature Article on the use of the World Wide Web in extension plant pathology was downloaded 313 times (Biggs and Grove, 1998 (pdf download 1.6 Mb file)), followed by the Fire Blight fact sheet (140).

Most active countries: The Kearneysville Tree Fruit Web Site was visited by individuals from 116 countries (9 more than the previous year) (Table 4). Sixty-eight percent of visitors were from the United States, 11% were international, and 21% could not be determined. The countries most frequently visiting, after the U.S., with 112,696 user sessions, were Canada (3,593), UK (3,133), Australia (1,554), Germany (941), Netherlands (620), Italy (597), and France (490).

Most active North American states and provinces: The Kearneysville web site was visited by individuals from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 9 Canadian provinces (Table 5). The most user sessions originated from Virginia (58.6%, America Online), California (15.3%, Digital Equipment Corp. and Excite, Inc.), Minnesota (3.1%) and West Virginia (2.2%). Other top ranking states and provinces included, in descending order, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New Jersey, Georgia, Washington, Oregon, and Michigan (Table 5). Most active states and provinces are determined by where the domain name of the visitor's ISP is registered, and may not always be an accurate representation of the geographic location of the visitor.

Most active cities: The most active city was Vienna, Va., followed by Palo Alto, Ca., Mountain View, Ca., Morgantown, W.Va., Golden Valley, Minn., Winchester, Va., Lincroft, N.J.,  Pittsburgh, Pa., Falls Church, Va., and Atlanta, Ga.  As with states and provinces, most active cities is determined by where the domain name of the visitor's ISP is registered, and may not always be an accurate representation of the geographic location of the visitor.

Most downloaded files: Portable document format (pdf) files are available for all fact sheets and some research articles and spray bulletins.  The top 5 downloaded files were the Virginia Insect and Disease Management Guide (10,978), the fire blight fact sheet (293), a Plant Disease article by Biggs and Grove on the use of the Internet in extension plant pathology(233), the bacterial canker fact sheet (195), and the plum pox fact sheet (183).

Teaching uses:  Information on teaching uses is gathered from a short form that course instructors are asked to submit when the web site is being used in the classroom.  The KTFREC web site is used in a variety of settings for teaching, including associate degree, undergraduate and graduate level college and university courses in Introductory Biology, Environmental Biology, Economic Botany, Fruit Production, Sustainable Fruit and Vegetable Production, Biology of the Fungi, Horticultural Science, and Pomology.  The teaching form has been submitted by users in the U.S.A., Chile, Germany, Italy, and Viet Nam.  In Environmental Biology for non-majors, the instructor uses the web site in the classroom to illustrate with photographs the importance of diseases on food crops.  In Biology of the Fungi, students are assigned web pages as references and are also used in class as the instructor describes the various fungal taxa.  High quality images are critical in this setting.  In Sustainable Fruit and Vegetable Production, the students have to design a fruit production business and anticipate production problems that they might encounter. Thus, they go to the web site to do background work on diseases and insects, debating about which are important in their state. Then the students spend time in class, after they have visited a few businesses, prioritizing the pests that drive control programs. Thus, in this example, the site is used primarily for information gathering. County extension agents in West Virginia and neighboring states use the site to print fact sheets for fruit-related inquiries.  Extension agents that have not had previous experience in tree fruit have used the site to learn about diseases that they might encounter in their daily activities.  Teaching uses are not limited to the typical classroom or extension setting.  One individual used the site with her Cub Scout group to help children earn an agricultural activity pin.

Conclusions: Use of the web site has continued to grow in 2000, although the rate of growth may be decreasing  relative to earlier years. The web site is being used by commercial orchardists locally and nationally, professional orchard consultants, university fruit extension specialists and research and teaching faculty, regional and county agricultural extension agents, master gardeners, and home orchardists. The web site is being used for university teaching at the associate, undergraduate, and graduate levels.

Acknowledgement of contributors to the Kearneysville Tree Fruit Web Site: Entomology material prepared by H. W. Hogmire, plant nutrition material prepared by S. S. Miller, plant pathology material provided by A. R. Biggs, A. L. Jones, W. Janisiewicz, P. W. Steiner, T. B. Sutton, W. F. Wilcox, and K. S. Yoder. Original content in plant pathology was based on the Mid-Atlantic Orchard Monitoring Guide, NRAES, 1995 (contributors listed here). The disease key was based on that published by Schwarz and Burr, 1984, and revised to include major diseases of the mid-Atlantic region. Most of the original Monitoring Guide articles have been revised, edited, and supplemented with new material provided by A. R. Biggs, A. L. Jones, P. W. Steiner, T. B. Sutton, W. F. Wilcox, and K. S. Yoder.

Table 1. Glossary of terms used in this presentation.

Table 2. Total page views and user sessions for the Kearneysville Tree Fruit Web Site for the period from October 1, 1999, through September 30, 2000.

^z Based on WebTrends analysis.

Table 3. Comparison of the top 50 requested pages from 1 October, 1999, through 30 September, 2000, based on WebTrends analysis of server log files

* = not available in 1998
** = not ranked in top 50 1998

Table 4. The top 50 countries visiting the Kearneysville web site from 1 October, 1999, through 30 September, 2000, based on WebTrends analysis of server log files