Research
ENhancing Diversity to Overcome ReSistance Evolution
A new framework that minimises damage to our natural environments while sustainably safeguarding our ability to protect crops. ENDORSE is a new approach to pest management that aims to enhance the sustainability of crop production using biopesticides in heterogeneous environments to facilitate long-term evolutionarily sustainable pest control.
Biocomes: new biological products for sustainable farming and forestry
The objective of the European project BIOCOMES was to provide the essential information for development of plant protection agents based on invertebrate biological control agents (parasitoids, entomopathogenic nematodes), baculoviruses for pest control, and bacteria and fungi for pest and fungal disease control. Targeted forestry pests included the large pine weevil, Hylobius abietis. Entomopathogenic nematodes were applied to stumps with the aim of reducing the overall population of weevils by killing the larval stages. Nematodes caused high parasitisation levels of weevil larvae in large scale field trials.
Establishing a Platform for the Integrated Pest Management in Irish Crops (EPIC)
As part of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive (2009/128/EC) EU member states are obliged to develop National Action Plans (NAP) to reduce the impact pesticides have on human and environmental health. The introduction of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) as means of reducing the dependency of different cropping systems on such pesticides is essential. Irish climatic conditions can exacerbate pest problems. The EPIC project, (Establishing a Platform for the Integrated Pest Management in Irish Crops) seeked to address these issues
Assessing the prospects for biological control of Lagarosiphon major in Ireland
Lagarosiphon major is a submerged freshwater plant native to South Africa, and a destructive invader of waterways across Europe, Australasia and the USA. Mechanical and chemical methods of control can be unsustainable highlighting the need to consider alternative methods such as biological control. Native range exploration in South Africa revealed the phytophagous organisms associated with L. major. The host specificity, damage efficacy and predicted colonisation, demonstrate the potential H. lagarosiphon has as a biological control agent for L. major in Ireland.
