Global Plant Protection News

Welcome to the 31st edition of ENDURE News, the electronic newsletter from ENDURE. Please feel free to share this newsletter with colleagues.

• Report on glyphosate use in Europe demonstrates the diversity of uses and the dependence of some cropping systems on the herbicide
  Despite being the most widely used herbicide in the world and the subject of controversy regarding its direct and indirect effects, little information is available on the quantitative aspects of glyphosate, such as its use in European countries. This has now been addressed with the publication of an ENDURE report, ‘A survey on the uses of glyphosate in European countries’.
• New group for chemical pesticide-free agriculture
  A new European Research Alliance has been launched, drawing together 24 research organisations from 16 countries focused on the topic ‘Towards a Chemical Pesticide-free Agriculture’. The Alliance includes eight ENDURE partner organisations and “aims to rethink the way research is carried out and develop new common research and experimentation strategies, not just at a national level, but throughout the whole continent”.
• Learning in the virtual world
  Covid-19 has meant that we have all had to adapt our working practices, ensure social distancing and keep colleagues and family safe. For many of us it has seen a major increase in the use of online meetings and this has certainly been the case for Certiphyto’s world tour. The tour had barely kicked off in the French Caribbean (pictured right, a visit to an organic producer in Martinique) when France went into lockdown, bringing what should have been a 22-date tour to a rapid halt.
• JKI launches IYPH programme
  Germany’s Julius Kühn-Institut (JKI) has identified a range of events it will target to mark the 2020 International Year of Plant Health. In particular, JKI will be driving home the message that the global trade in plants means there is a permanent risk of pests and diseases being introduced into regions where they are not indigenous.
• Win-win with strip cropping, says WUR
  The multiple benefits of strip cropping are highlighted in a recent report from Wageningen University, which has been studying the approach for several years. This year more than 20 Dutch farmers, both conventional and organic, have begun or expanded strip cropping, which helps attract more beneficial insects into fields and slows disease spread.  
• IWMPRAISE offers IWM inspiration
  IWMPRAISE, the Horizon 2020 project dedicated to Integrated Weed Management (IWM), has produced a series of ‘inspiration sheets’ over recent weeks. They present guidance on techniques such as inter-row hoeing in small grain cereals and improving crop diversification through the use of intercrops and subsidiary crops, alongside a series of inspiration sheets on the biology and management of a selection of weeds.
• Insights into barriers to crop diversification
  DiverIMPACTS researchers have analysed the project’s 25 case studies to explore the extent to which barriers to crop diversification are related to the setting in which they emerge. The project’s multi-actor case studies are allocated to one of five clusters: service crops, crop diversification under adverse conditions, crop diversification in systems from Western Europe, diversification through intercropping, with a special focus on grain legumes, and the diversification of vegetable cropping systems.
• LCA ‘limited’ in agroecology assessments
  The most commonly used method for analysing the environmental impacts of agricultural systems tends to overlook major factors such as biodiversity, soil quality, pesticide impacts and societal shifts, reports France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE).
• Farmers urged to share yield monitor data
  Researchers from the Horizon 2020 EcoStack project are urging farmers to share their yield monitor data from GPS-enabled combine harvesters. The data will be used to help researchers establish “how landscape features found just beyond the field affects variation in crop yield, and whether yield decline towards the edge of fields can be reduced by the presence of certain types of field boundaries”.
• WUR to investigate wild potato potential
  Wageningen University & Research (WUR), ENDURE’s Dutch partner, is to turn its attention to wild potatoes in the search for resistance to a wide range of potato pests and diseases. WUR says pests and diseases in potato crops are likely to increase due to increasing extremes in temperature and rainfall combined with a reduction in chemical solutions.
• Ensuring successful control strategies
  An international team of researchers lead by Rothamsted Research has examined the factors that make or break campaigns to stop invading plant pathogens, concluding that educating growers about the effectiveness of control strategies is more important than emphasising the risks posed by the disease.
• Agroscope to lead Japanese beetle project
  Agroscope, ENDURE’s Swiss partner, is to lead a €5.5 million project to develop sustainable strategies for controlling the quarantine pest, Japanese beetle. The pest was first detected on Switzerland’s southern border in 2017 and it threatens to spread further into Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe.
• EuroBlight unveils 2019 monitoring results
  EuroBlight, the international consortium tracking the spatial distribution of Phytophthora infestans, the pathogen responsible for late blight in potato crops, has published the results of its extensive 2019 survey work, revealing the distribution and diversity of dominant clones in the crop.
• SusCrop newsletter now available
  The second newsletter from ERA-Net SusCrop is now available, bringing readers up to date with the activities of the Cofund Action under H2020, which “aims to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of Sustainable Crop Production through enhanced cooperation and coordination of different national and regional research programmes”.
• WUR unveils greenhouse of the future
  Wageningen University and Research (WUR) has unveiled a cutting-edge demonstration greenhouse designed to help the Dutch horticultural sector become CO2 neutral by 2040. Not limited simply to energy efficiency, the new greenhouse incorporates innovative measures designed to reduce pesticide and artificial fertiliser use to zero while improving yields.
• Events calendar: Check it out!
  Inevitably, the Covid-19 pandemic has played havoc with this year’s conference and meeting schedules. Here at ENDURE we have updated our Events calendar as best we can to try and keep track of the conferences and meetings which have been rescheduled or moved online.
• Update: SusCrop issues second call for proposals
  The second transnational call for proposals from ERA-Net SusCrop is now open with an extended deadline due to the impact of COVID-19 in many countries. SusCrop is an ERA-Net Cofund Action under H2020, which “aims to strengthen the European Research Area (ERA) in the field of Sustainable Crop Production through enhanced cooperation and coordination of different national and regional research programmes”.
• System experiments: Take the survey!
  Are you involved in system experiments, whether at the project stage, ongoing or completed? If so and you can spare a few minutes, you can take part in a survey forming part of a PhD thesis focusing on ‘Methodological contributions to experimental and observational approaches in agronomy and agroecology’ being conducted by Sandrine Longis (a CIFRE Arvalis thesis in collaboration with INRAE’s Agroecologies, Innovations and Ruralities combined research unit (UMR AGIR)).
• Goodbye INRA, hello INRAE
  France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) is no more. Instead, it has undergone a major merger with the country’s National Institute for Research in Science and Technology for the Environment and Agriculture (IRSTEA). They new organisation is called the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment and will be known by the initials INRAE.
• PhD to focus on pest modelling in rice
  France’s INRAE and CIRAD are offering a PhD focusing on modelling ‘multiple pests in rice crops for agroecological rice protection in Cambodia’. The PhD should help tackle the excessive use of pesticides in Cambodian rice crops, where up to 13 treatments are used each cropping season, leading to some European exports being refused because of excess residues.
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