All the news

• PhD Summer School programme now online
  

  Lecturers from the USA, Denmark, France and The Netherlands have been lined up for June’s second ENDURE PhD Summer School, which will take place in Volterra, Italy.

• Summer school tackles bioactive natural compounds
  

  ENDURE partner Aarhus University is joint organiser of the Research School of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology (RECETO) PhD summer school being held on the university's Flakkebjerg campus, 100km south-west of Copenhagen, in July. Lecturers include ENDURE Executive Committee member Per Kudsk (pictured right) from Aarhus University.

• Forging links with Argentina
  

  ENDURE was recently invited by the European Commission (EC) to take part in a workshop exploring opportunities for twinning in soil, plant and food research in the Argentinean city of Buenos Aires, alongside representatives of the EC and Mercosur, the Southern American Common Market that brings together countries such as Argentina Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

• ENDURE Conference: proceedings go online
  

  ENDURE’s first International Conference, Diversifying Crop Protection, was held in the French Mediterranean resort of La Grande Motte in October 2008, attracting more than 200 scientists from around the world.

• Comparing pesticide use for rapeseed and wheat
  

  Aarhus University, one of ENDURE's two Danish partners, reported recently on comparisons in pesticide use for winter rapeseed and winter wheat, revealing that Denmark's use of pesticides is markedly lower than in several other European countries.

• Advisers to test drive ENDURE Information Centre
  

  ENDURE’S Information Centre (ENDURE IC) will be tested by advisers at June’s giant Cereals Event 2009 event in the UK, as the web-based system for sharing best practice across Europe nears its final form.

• Bananas: new ways of growing our favourite fruit
  

  While no one could deny the fact that Europeans love eating bananas, it is easy to overlook the fact that Europe is actually responsible for growing them too.

• Weed modellers of the world unite
  

  Even if you have the smallest garden, you will be familiar with the problems posed by weeds. It does not take much imagination then to realise the scale of the problem for farmers and that is why ENDURE has been involved in extensive work on one of our most common pests.

• Austria workshop for landscape ecology
  

  ENDURE’s landscape ecology experts will be staging a workshop in Austria this July as part of the International Association for Landscape Ecology’s European Conference in the city of Salzburg.

• Interview: Pierre Ricci, ENDURE coordinator
  

  ENDURE coordinator Pierre Ricci (pictured right) is director of INRA’s Institut Sophia Agrobiotech, a French National Institute for Agricultural Research base on the Mediterranean coast, sandwiched between Nice and Cannes. With the ENDURE Network of Excellence entering its third year of operation, ENDURE’s web editor, Andrew Lewer, caught up with him. You can read the interview, or watch the video (see bottom of page).