All the news

• Halving pesticide use in apple orchards
  

  Researchers from INRA (France’s National Institute for Agricultural Research) have reported on their long-term experimental work on apple orchards, which has seen them reduce pesticide use by up to 50% through a series of measures based on increased forecasting and observation of pests and diseases.

• Significant improvements required in NAPs
  

  The European Commission has urged Member States to “significantly” improve their National Action Plans (NAP) to address the shortcomings identified in their review of progress on the implementation of the Pesticides Directive (2009/128/EC) and to “establish more precise and measurable targets”.

• Search for SWD predators closes in
  

  The prospects of new biological controls to combat spotted-wing drosophila, a serious invasive pest causing extensive economic damage in berries and stone fruit, have moved a step closer thanks to two projects involving ENDURE partners.

• ‘One health’ approach to include crop pests
  

  CIRAD and INRA, two of ENDURE’s French partners, have combined forces with other research and higher educational institutions to form a network to drive innovation in the control of not only crop pests but also arthropods which transmit pathogens causing infectious diseases in humans and animals.

• ESA 2018 to address innovative systems
  

  ENDURE’s Swiss partner Agroscope is leading the organisation of the XV European Society for Agronomy Congress, which runs from August 27 to 31 in the lakeside city of Geneva and will address the theme of ‘Innovative cropping and farming systems for high quality food production.’

• Catch up with Agroecology Europe
  

  The first newsletter from Agroecology Europe is now available, offering reports and video from last October’s European Agroecology Forum, which brought together more than 300 farmers, researchers, students, policy makers and representatives from social movements and civil society in Lyon, France.

• Blight tracking results now available
  

  EuroBlight, the potato late blight network for Europe, has revealed the findings of its ongoing work to chart changes in the European population of the pathogen, a major effort which saw almost 1,500 samples from 16 countries genotyped in last year’s growing season.

• IPM central to wheat anti-resistance strategies
  

  EuroWheat has stressed the importance of implementing Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies in wheat as fungicide resistance continues to develop across the continent, raising concerns about the impact of Septoria tritici blotch (STB) on yields.

• Profiting from legumes
  

  The TRUE project has marked its first anniversary with the release of its second newsletter, bringing readers up to date with its work on ‘Transition paths to sustainable legume based systems in Europe’, which includes 24 case studies in three pedoclimatic regions across the continent (‘Atlantic’, ‘Continental’ and ‘Mediterranean’).

• EMPHASIS on LAMP technology
  

  The EMPHASIS project (Effective Management of Pests and Harmful Alien Species – Integrated Solutions), which is seeking practical solutions “to predict, to prevent and to protect agriculture and forestry systems from native and alien pests threats”, will be focusing on loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) as an emerging molecular tool for the rapid in-field diagnosis of plant diseases at a summer school this July.