All the news

• Global attack on potato blight
  

  There is a real prospect of a global attack on potato blight, reports the European EuroBlight network, with the first steps being taken during the group's biennial meeting in Romania in June. Experts from North America, South America and Asia joined their European colleagues at the meeting.

• New: Tools for advisers and trainers
  

  A new section of the ENDURE website has been created, offering rapid access to the tools produced by the New Advisers project and links to other materials and information useful for agricultural advisers and trainers.

• IPM Strategic Research Agenda takes shape
  

  The second draft of the Strategic Research Agenda for IPM (Integrated Pest Management) in Europe is now online, giving interested parties three months to respond and help refine the final version.

• New PURE IPM tools available online
  

  A raft of useful Integrated Pest Management (IPM) tools are now available from the PURE research project, including booklets summarising PURE's experimental work and e-learning presentations designed to aid the implementation of IPM solutions.

• How France is training the trainers
  

  ENDURE Communication Team leader Philippe Delval (left) is nearing the end of a 19-stop 'world tour' which has seen him and ACTA partner Bryce Bouvard (right) deliver a series of 'thematic' days, marking the second stage of France's major efforts to train trainers, in other words the personnel responsible for providing insight into alternative pest control methods to farmers and producers seeking the obligatory certification required to use pesticides in France.

• Training the trainers: e-learning examined
  

  The e-learning courses provided by ACTA, working on behalf of the French Directorate General for Education and Research, are provided through a dedicated website and divided into sectors, for example, field crops, vegetable production etc. We have taken a closer look at the training dedicated to viticulture, particularly important in France as vines occupy close to one million hectares of land and play a major part in the country’s economy as well as attracting large numbers of tourists from France and beyond. And, given the diverse range of insect pests and diseases faced, pesticide use is high.

• ENDURE presents IPM activities to global audience
  

  A team of six ENDURE scientists presented ongoing IPM activities in Europe at the 8th International Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Symposium held in Salt Lake City, USA, from March 23 to 26. The team comprised Graham Begg and Nick Birch from the UK's The James Hutton Institute (JHI), Jay Ram Lamichhane from France's National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Maurizio Sattin and Vasileios Vasileiadis from Italy's National Research Council (CNR), and Per Kudsk from Denmark's Aarhus University (AU).

• Sustainable crop protection for minor crops
  

  Experts from ENDURE and the European Research Area Network in Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (ERA-Net C-IPM) have set out their recommendations for tackling the lack of viable protection options for minor crops, a problem estimated to be causing losses of more than one billion Euros per year in Europe.

• First C-IPM ERA-Net call underway
  

  The first joint transnational call from the Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (C-IPM) ERA-Net opened on Monday, April 27, 2015, with a total budget of around €6 million available for collaborative research projects. The deadline for the submission of pre-proposal(s) was June 8, 2015.

• Name change as Danish partner grows
  

  One of ENDURE's two Danish partners has changed its name after merging with the country's pig research centre. The Knowledge Centre for Agriculture (VFL) is now known as SEGES and, together with the Danish Agricultural Advisory Service, is in a nationwide collaboration with a total of 30 advisory services, which combined employ some 3,100 staff.