All the news

• New criteria for late blight risk
  

  Researchers from ENDURE’s Scottish partner, the James Hutton Institute (JHI), have unveiled new criteria for measuring the risk of late blight in potato crops, which will help to improve the UK’s alert system from 2017.

• EUCLID reports “significant progress”
  

  The second newsletter from the EUCLID project (Europe China Lever for IPM Demonstration) is now available, following hot on the heels of EUCLID’s annual meeting and providing an update from the four-year project’s activities.

• Innovative network launched in UK
  

  Rothamsted Research’s Professor Toby Bruce has launched an innovative new network, comprising a website and phone apps, which “provides easy access to information about pest, weed and disease management for farmers and agronomists, especially in situations where effective pesticides are not available and alternative approaches are required.”

• Brexit: Issues in agricultural research
  

  From dire warnings and shock through to the promise of extra government funding and even signs of optimism in some quarters, the United Kingdom’s research sector has been on a roller-coaster since UK voters chose to leave the European Union in June. Here we take a look at some of the issues facing agricultural research in the UK as the country prepares for Brexit.

• Catch up with BIOCOMES
  

  There is a chance to catch up with progress in the BIOCOMES project (‘New biological products for sustainable farming and forestry’) with the publication of its eighth newsletter. The project, 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.

• UK plant health portal launched
  

  The United Kingdom has launched a Plant Health Information Portal, an online hub for information, data and resources, as part of its plant biosecurity strategy. This strategy emphasises that ensuring plant health is not only a matter for government but requires a partnership between all stakeholders, including citizens.

• Catch up with C-IPM’s plant breeding workshop
  

  Further details are now available online of C-IPM’s plant breeding for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) workshop, held earlier this year, including answers to a number of key questions posed during the two and a half day event in Poland.

• Call for papers: Landscape management
  

  A call for papers has been issued for the 7th meeting of the IOBC/WPRS working group on ‘Landscape management for functional biodiversity’, which is being held in conjunction with a British Ecological Society Agricultural Ecology Special Interest Group meeting on March 29 to 31, 2017, in Dundee, Scotland.

• Identifying research priorities for biocontrol
  

  Drawing on the work of a large panel of experts, researchers have produced a series of recommendations designed to help define priorities for research in biological control, one of the cornerstones of Integrated Pest Management (IPM).

• ENDURE gives Masters students IPM insight
  

  ENDURE gave an invited plenary talk on the importance of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and the challenges and opportunities in IPM research and innovation (R&I) in Europe and beyond, at the launch of a new European Joint Master Degree.