Management of plant health risks associated with processing of plant-based wastes: A review

The rise in international trade of plants and plant products has increased the risk of introduction and spread of plant pathogens and pests. In addition, new risks are arising from the implementation of more environmentally friendly methods of biodegradable waste disposal, such as composting and anaerobic digestion. As these disposal methods do not involve sterilisation, there is good evidence that certain plant pathogens and pests can survive these processes. The temperature/time profile of the disposal process is the most significant and easily defined factor in controlling plant pathogens and pests. In this review, the current evidence for temperature/time effects on plant pathogens and pests is summarised. The advantages and disadvantages of direct and indirect process validation for the verification of composting processes, to determine their efficacy in destroying plant pathogens and pests in biowaste, are discussed. The availability of detection technology and its appropriateness for assessing the survival of quarantine organisms is also reviewed

Automatic plant pest detection and recognition using k-means clustering algorithm and correspondence filters

Plant pest recognition and detection is vital for food security, quality of life and a stable agricultural economy. This research demonstrates the combination of the k-means clustering algorithm and the correspondence filter to achieve pest detection and recognition. The detection of the dataset is achieved by partitioning the data space into Voronoi cells, which tends to find clusters of comparable spatial extents, thereby separating the objects (pests) from the background (pest habitat). The detection is established by extracting the variant distinctive attributes between the pest and its habitat (leaf, stem) and using the correspondence filter to identify the plant pests to obtain correlation peak values for different datasets. This work further establishes that the recognition probability from the pest image is directly proportional to the height of the output signal and inversely proportional to the viewing angles, which further confirmed that the recognition of plant pests is a function of their position and viewing angle. It is encouraging to note that the correspondence filter can achieve rotational invariance of pests up to angles of 360 degrees, which proves the effectiveness of the algorithm for the detection and recognition of plant pests

Dry Bean Pest Scouting Report

A survey of dry bean pests was conducted on farms throughout Vermont during the 2016 season. Plant diseases and insect pests were scouted on five Vermont farm locations in the towns of Alburgh, Cambridge, Danby, Glover, and North Ferrisburg. Unknown disease and insect samples were taken and identified with assistance from the UVM Plant Diagnostic Laboratory (PDC)

Organic Centre Wales Technical Note 3: Biology and Management of Soil pests

The majority of crops grown in the UK are host to single or multiple insect pests that feed on the growing plant at some stage of their life cycle. Insect pest is not strictly correct terminology because the pests come from a wide range of families or groups, from Coleoptera (beetles), Diptera (true flies), Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), Molluscs (slugs and snails) and Nematodes. This technical sheet lists major and minor pests, provides a simple key for identifying soil pests, lists requirements for effective cultural control of pests and lists sources of further information

Visacane, the Cirad quarantine tool for the exchange of pest and disease-free sugarcane germplasm

Sugarcane varietal improvement requires the introduction of vegetative propagation material. The continued increase of international and intercontinental trade of plants has led to the enforcement of quarantine measures in many countries before the introduction of vegetatively propagated material because many plant pathogens can be carried and transmitted by them. Visacane is the CIRAD's sugarcane quarantine (http://visacane.cirad.fr/en/). Visacane has been devoted to sugarcane quarantining for several decades. It covers detection of pests and pathogens, elimination of pests and pathogens, and transfer of plant material free of pests and pathogens. Besides phytosanitary constraints, this quarantine structure also takes into account legal constraints and ensures that plant breeders' intellectual property rights over the transferred material are respected. Visacane can import and export varieties from and to most sugarcane growing countries in the world, ensuring that the material is free from any well-known important pest and disease causing agent. Because it is integrated into a pathology research unit studying various aspects of plant-pathogen interactions, and thanks to its collaborations within a network of sugarcane technologists, Visacane can regularly update its expertise and propose plant material exhibiting the best possible phytosanitary quality. (Résumé d'auteur

Exploit biodiversity in viticultural systems to reduce pest damage and pesticide use, and increase ecosystems services provision

Organic vineyards still rely on large external inputs to control harmful organisms (i.e., pests). BIOVINE will develop natural solutions based on plant diversity to control pests and reduce pesticide dependence. The capability of plants of increasing the ecosystem resistance to pests and invasive species is a well known ecosystem service. However, monocultures (including vineyards) do not exploit the potential of plant diversity. BIOVINE aims to develop new viticultural systems based on increased plant diversity within (eg, cover crops) and/or around (e.g., hedges, vegetation spots, edgings) vineyards by planting selected plant species for the control of arthropods, soil-borne pests (oomycetes, fungi, nematodes), and foliar pathogens. Candidate plants will be identified by literature review, and the selected ones will be tested in controlled environment or small-scale experiments. The ability of the selected plants to: i) attract or repel target arthropod pests; ii) conserve/promote beneficials; iii) control soil-borne pests by mean of biofumigation; iv) carry mycorrhizal fungi to vine root system to increase plant health (growth and resistance); v) control foliar pathogens by reducing the inoculum spread from soil, will be investigated. New viticultural systems able to exploit plant diversity will then be designed based on results of BIOVINE activities, following a design-assessment-adjustment cycle, which will then be tested by in-vineyard experiments in France, Italy, Romania, Spain and Switzerland for a 2-year period. Innovative viticultural systems should represent an improved way for pest control in organic viticulture, meanwhile they should positively affect functional biodiversity and ecosystem services. New control strategies may provide financial opportunities to vinegrowers and lower their reliance on pesticides

Modelling plant-insect interactions: theory and application in crop protection

Reducing the use of chemicals and thus developing environmentally friendlier methods such as biological control is one of the current important challenges in crop protection. But, even if biological control has developed very rapidly in the past decades, its successes in efficiently controlling insect pests have been mixed. Modelling and simulation tools can help to grasp biological interactions and also improve biological control. At the core of any biological control program lies a tri-trophic food chain linking plants, pests and their natural enemies. However, up to now, biological control modelling has primarily focused on pests-natural enemies interactions considering somehow that crop yield is not affected by the pests. In practice this assumption is not always realistic. If the main objective of the control is to maintain the crop yield above a critical threshold, then plant growth and plant-insect interactions have to be taken into account...Not an easy task! Using a minimal modelling approach, our contribution focuses on plant-insect interactions as a first step towards a full plants-pests-natural enemies model. Plant growth is modelled in such a way that the growth pattern of the plant and its final biomass are both dependent on the initial pest's infestation level. This contrasts with most population dynamics models, including plant-grazers models, which after some transients tend to produce similar dynamics for different initial conditions. Numerical simulations are provided using parameters identified in the literature to illustrate the model dynamics on the interaction between tomato plants and a leafminer, Tuta absoluta. In particular, the results show that well timed pests control interventions (mechanical control or non-persistent bio-pesticides) have important effects on the growth pattern and the final biomass of the tomato plants. (Résumé d'auteur

Management of strawberry blossom weevil and European tarnished plant bug in organic strawberry and raspberry using semiochemical traps

In the absence of effective control measures, the strawberry blossom weevil (Anthonomus rubi), the European tarnished plant bug (Lygus rugulipennis) and the raspberry beetle (Byturus tomentosus) cause large (10 - >80%) losses in yield and quality in organically grown strawberry (A. rubi and L .rugulipennis) and raspberry (A. rubi and B. tomentosus). In this project the natural semiochemical mechanisms of sexual attraction and host plant finding of these key pests will be exploited to develop effective semiochemical traps for their management through mass trapping. Attractive lures will be combined into a single multitrap for economic management of these pests simultaneously in each crop. This will be one of the first approaches to pest management of non-lepidopteran insect pests of horticultural crops using semiochemicals in the EU, and probably the first to target multiple species from different insect orders. Growers of organic raspberry and strawberry crops currently have few options for effective control of these pests and development of semiochemical-based, non-pesticidal management techniques will make a major contribution to reduction of significant economic losses

Dry Bean Pest Scouting Report

A survey of dry bean pests was conducted on farms in Vermont during the 2015 season. Pests were scouted on four Vermont farm locations in the towns of Alburgh, North Hero, Glover, and Danby. Disease and insect samples were taken and identified with assistance from the UVM Plant Diagnostic Laboratory. The primary and secondary fungal and bacterial diseases documented on dry beans in Vermont are listed in Table 1

Risks of new pests and diseases

Climate change will affect the social and environmental determinants of the health of human, animal and plant populations around the world. It will challenge the social and biological capacities of food systems to regulate the emergence of pests and pathogens. Especially in Low-Income (LI) and Lower Middle-Income (LMI) countries, food systems will be dealing with new pests, diseases and emerging pathogens (viruses, bacteria, mycoplasma and fungi) severely threatening the health of vulnerable people and potentially exacerbating social and economic inequalities