Global Plant Protection News

About

The International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences (IAPPS) is an international scientific organization devoted to the global implementation of sustainable plant health management strategies. The IAPPS Goal is “To  insure production of sufficient quality of food/feed/fiber for a growing world population” and the  IAPPS Mission is ” To advocate implementation of sustainable plant health management strategies.”  The IAPPS blog is provided as a service to IAPPS members  to achieve the IAPPS goal and mission in that it  provides a global forum for the purpose of identifying, evaluating, integrating, and promoting plant protection concepts, technologies, and policies which are economically, environmentally, and socially acceptable.

IAPPS Blog Team

Dr. E. A. "Short" Heinrichs, IAPPS Secretary General and INTSORMIL Assistant Director, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA

Dr. E.A. “Short” Heinrichs is an entomologist with extensive overseas and US experience in the development and implementation of integrated pest management (IPM) programs. He has lived and worked in six countries (Brazil, India, Italy, Ivory Coast, Philippines and the USA). Long term experience in agricultural development programs in Asia, South America and Africa and collaborative research with NARS in 36 countries. Academic experience as Professor on the faculties of four universities in the USA and the Philippines. Development of IPM training manuals and field guides. Research experience at IARCs and in US universities in the development of sustainable IPM practices involving insect resistant crop varieties integrated with biological control agents, cultural practices and the judicious use of pesticides. Author of 7 books and 400+ scientific research articles on IPM subjects. Administrative experience as University Department Head and Director and as program leader in international agricultural research centers. Crop emphasis on rice and soybeans with experience in wheat, groundnut, vegetables, and maize and in estate crops including cotton and cashews. Extensive experience in working in multidisciplinary teams involving sociologists, plant breeders, soil scientists, agronomists, economists, plant pathologists, weed scientists, entomologists, and nematologists. IPM experience involving cooperation with international agencies including USAID, World Bank, African Development Bank and international agricultural centers of the CGIAR and as Director of the IPM CRSP. Currently Assistant Director, INTSORMIL; adjunct professor, Department of Entomology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; consultant for the IPM CRSP, Virginia Tech and Secretary General, International Association for the Plant Protection Sciences (IAPPS).

Dr. Rangaswamy Muniappan, IPM CRSP Program Director, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

Rangaswamy Muniappan, a biological control specialist, is Program Director of  the IPM CRSP at the Virginia Polytechnic and State University. He received a PhD in Entomology from Oklahoma State University in 1969; MS Agricultural Entomology from University of Madras in 1965; and BS Agriculture from the University of Madras in 1963. He was a Postdoctoral Associate, Oklahoma State University, 1969-1970 and worked at the Guam Department of Agriculture from 1970 to 1975 and then moved to University of Guam. At the University of Guam he carried both faculty and administrative duties of the Agricultural Experiment Station and in 1995 he became Professor Emeritus of Entomology. He has been involved in economic entomology, biological-control, and integrated pest management research for well over four decades. His early work involved in use of spiders in biological control and tritrophic interactions of resistant barley, greenbug, and its parasitoid. His recent research involves the management of both invasive weeds and insect pests in tropical countries especially in Asia and the Pacific. His achievements include control of pest insects, the papaya mealybug (Paracoccus marginatus), pink hibiscus mealybug (Maconellicoccus hirsutus), fruit piercing moth (Othreis phallonia), red coconut scale (Furcaspis oceanica), orange spiny whitefly (Aleurocanthus spiniferus), New Guinea sugarcane weevil (Rhabdoscelus obscurus), banana weevil (Cosmopolites sordidus), the Asian cycad scale, (Aulacaspis yasumatsui) and cruciferous crop pests and the weeds, Siam weed (Chromolaena odorata) lantana (Lantana camara), ivy gourd (Coccinia grandis), and the giant sensitive plant (Mimosa diplotricha). He has been a long standing member of the International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC) and as the Chairman of the Global Working Group on Chromolaena, he conducted seven international workshops in Africa, Asia and Australia from 1988 to 2006. He has been instrumental in establishing the IOBC global working group on Parthenium in 2009. Currently he is managing the USAID funded Integrated Pest Management Collaborative Research Support Program (IPM CRSP) which includes Central, South and Southeast Asia, East and West Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean regions of the tropical world.  He was one of the editors of the book: Biological control of Tropical Weeds Using Arthropods (2009), Cambridge University Press. He is currently an IAPPS Governing Board Member and Coordinator of Region XI: North America.