The latest newsletter from BIOCOMES is now available, providing readers with an update on the work of the project which is focusing on ‘New biological products for sustainable farming and forestry’.
BIOCOMES, comprising 13 industrial partners and 14 research institutes and universities from 14 countries, is seeking to offer 11 new biological control products for arable, vegetable and fruit tree crops, plus new solutions for forestry and two new production technologies.
January’s newsletter includes:
The quest for a ‘super nematode’ which is able to attack beetles of the Diabrotica genus, the larvae of which are better known as western corn rootworm, a major problem in maize crops. “At e-nema, we have been breeding and selecting the nematodes that attack these harmful insects. Using classical genetic tools we have also been able to select strains of nematodes that are less susceptible to heat stress or desiccation during transport,” says professor Ralf-Udo Ehlers of e-nema. “In this quest for a ‘super nematode’ we need to cross these strains. That is where the partnerships in BIOCOMES are of crucial importance.” Read more here.
The newsletter also includes news on the work of Opennatur, a Spanish company whose range of biocontrol products include synthetic pheromones to attract insect pests in fruits, vegetables and forestry. Company CEO Victor Perdrix explains the importance of changing legislation on biocontrol products. “The consumers demand more and more biological products,” he says. “The knowledge is also available. What we need is acknowledgement by the European legislators that biological products, such as pheromones, are a different category of pesticides compared to the traditional synthetic products. That difference calls for different laws too. It makes no sense that biological products have to fulfil the same legal requirements like mass-produced synthetic agents.” Read more here.
The newsletter also brings readers up to date with the project’s research on a biological control agent (BCA) for the control of powdery mildew in cereals. BIOCOMES partners are developing a fungal BCA for spray applications and havecollected fungal isolates from leaf samples of cereal crops, grasses and other plant species affected by powdery mildew. Wageningen UR researchers have found several promising isolates which significantly and repeatedly reduced powdery mildew in wheat. These isolates will be now tested under different environmental circumstances (temperature and humidity) to check their antagonistic capacities. The most promising isolates will then be tested for the amount of spores they produce as high spore production is required for the production of high amounts of biocontrol product. These tests will be performed by BIOCOMES partner Bayer CropScience Biologics. Read more here.
The project’s work on a biological control agent for the gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar ) has shown that the insect pathogenic virus LdMNPV from the Baculoviridae family shows potential. An insect rearing unit has been set up at BIOCOMES partner Andermatt Biocontrol and stable and continuous rearing of L. dispar is now underway. The production of the virus is up and running and several LdMNPV isolates have been propagated and tested in bioassays. The isolates are being held in a virus bank which will be used to select the most appropriate isolate for the BCA. The next steps will be to further improve and automate the rearing and to test the efficacy of the different isolates in laboratory experiments and field trials and to initiate molecular and biological characterisation of the isolates. The most promising LdMNPV isolate will be used to formulate the final product. Read more here.
The BIOCOMES aphids team has produced an identification key for aphids in European fruit orchards. It includes all aphids in European crops such as peach, plum, cherry, apricot, apple and pear. At this moment the team is developing this key into an interactive application for fruit growers. It will enable them to identify aphids in their orchards. In the future, it could also provide a list of parasitoids that could be used to control the aphid infestation. You can follow a slideshare providing a quick overview of how BIOCOMES is working on aphid control using parasitoids here.
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