SCEPTRE Pests Research Management Group

Meeting 16 December 2010 at CRD, York

Summary notes

Present: Rosemary Collier (chair) Nick Birch, Jerry Cross, Roma Gwynn, Luke Tilley, Viv Powell

Apologies: Andrew Tinsley, Pat Croft, Harriet Duncalfe, John Sedgwick, Debbie Wilson

1.  Update from Project Management Group 10 November 2010

·  Rosemary Collier circulated minutes of PMG meeting and explained background to project. Focus on edibles but with opportunities for ornamentals. Work will focus on efficacy and sustainable solutions including conventional products and biorational products. Target pests and crops have already been agreed in consultation with industry. Flexibility is important – but retaining a strategy. There are other industry pest pressures not included here – some of these will be included in other HDC projects or Hortlink projects.

·  Meetings will be held every 6 months – and in advance of PMG – interim telecons will also be a regular feature to ensure continued communication.

·  This is a key opportunity to evaluate new products – confidentiality and coding is important.

2.  Overview of PURE project – Nick Birch

·  Nick Birch provided an over of the EU project in which SCRI are involved (PURE). This stands for Pesticide Use and risk reduction in European farming systems with integrated pest management FP7 2011-2014. The aim is to provide practical IPM solutions to reduce dependence on pesticides.

·  Farming Systems included are:

·  Annual – winter wheat based rotations, maize based rotations, field vegetables

·  Perennial – Grapevine and fruit crops (largely pome fruit)

·  Protected - Vegetables under cover (mainly tomatoes)

·  North and South regions

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·  Nick will provide the link between PURE and SCEPTRE to ensure that there is no overlap.

4.  Biopesticides – Roma Gwynn

·  Roma Gwyn provided a summary of key issues associated with biopesticides.

·  June 14 2011 – the new regulation for pesticide authorisation, 1107/2009, comes into force. Under 91/414 there is no category for ‘low risk’ products – any product that may have potential to be classified as low risk cannot at present be re-classified until re-registered – could be 10 years. New actives registered under 1107/2009 will be evaluated with consideration to be classed as ‘low risk’ or not.

·  Registered biopesticides: No definition exists for ‘Biopesticides’ – normally considered to be microorganisms, semiochemicals & botanicals. Regulation 1107/2009 aims to clarify some ‘grey-area’ products; some products currently used could need to be registered or they will be lost.

·  Registration exempt: Entomopathogenic nematodes are registration exempt, as are some specific physical acting agents.

·  Under new regulation (1107/2009) – Adjuvants and safeners will also be covered.#

·  Under the new regulations it should take around 2-3 years to register a new active as a biopesticide, and then a further 1-2 years to register it as a product.

·  The dose response curves for biopesticides are different to those of conventional pesticides, it is important to know this to understand how to use products effectively. Working with biopesticides, there is usually greater variance than for chemical pesticides so it is important to manage this to get consistency of effect, even if effectiveness is lower than ‘80% control’.. Damage threshold is important.

·  Biopesticides often work well when included in an IPM programme rather than used alone– include conventional chemistry to achieve a programme which provides control within the damage threshold.

·  Roma provided a list of good practice guidelines when assessing biopesticide efficacy.

5.  Future actions

·  HDC and Roma will circulate the spreadsheet showing proposed crops and targets to the manufacturers and biopesticides. The lists will be returned and collated and circulated to members of the group or the individual researcher. Individual researchers will be advised of products /codes

·  The next PMG is meeting 22 March at East Malling. It was proposed that protocols should be drafted for discussion in advance of the meeting. 1st March proposed as a target – and a telecon to be arranged to discuss the projects.