Fruktträdskräfta

För att träden ska kunna infekteras av fruktträdskräfta i någon större omfattning måste följande fem faktorer sammanfalla; - En relativt mottaglig äppelsort. - Inkörsport i träden t.ex. via sår. - Tillräckligt med sporer tillgängliga. - Regna under minst 2-6 timmar beroende på temperaturen och äppelsort. - Temperatur mellan 5oC och 30oC (optimal temperatur 11-16oC). De vanligaste infektionsperioderna är vid bladfall på hösten och knoppsprickning på våren. Vintertid vid temperaturer under 5oC sker ingen infektion. Det är mycket viktigt att i ett tidigt skede ta bort unga angripna träd samt kurera äldre angripna träd genom att skära bort och/eller pensla på med skyddande pasta. Om kemisk bekämpning används bör den som brukligt förläggas till tiden kring knoppsprickning och bladfall. Man bör vara sparsam med kvävegödsling och undvika att träden står i blöt jord vilket undviks genom dränering och ökad mullhalt

Co-developing pest management for organic apple production

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is an interventionist, action-orientated and transdisciplinary approach to applied research that strives for the collaborative development of any practice together with relevant stakeholders. It enhances the relevance of research to practice by active stakeholder involvement in all research steps, including the spaces in which the practice is conducted, its iterative knowledge construction and the recognition that knowledge exists in practice and is created when attempting to transform reality. During the PAR project on pest management in Swedish organic apple production on which this thesis is based, several pests and control methods were addressed, focusing mainly on the apple sawfly (Hoplocampa testudinea Klug). An interdisciplinary methodology and PAR approach was employed, including participatory meetings, interviews and field and laboratory experiments. An efficient control method was developed involving a forecasting model in combination with a botanical pesticide derived from Quassia amara L. However, the potential negative side effects of Q. amara on natural enemies are currently being evaluated by the European Union. Control of the apple sawfly by soil application of the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin was found to be insufficient in the field trial and requires further studies to bridge the gap between laboratory and field results. B. bassiana persistence was found to be high during the apple sawfly descent to the soil and negligible after a year. During the project a need emerged to find a theory and tools that could support participatory problem formulation by identifying the systemic root causes of the pest problems being experienced and explain the main drivers of this development. It was assumed that this would facilitate the development of more sustainable solutions. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) offered these tools and was applied as a retrospective analytical lens on the PAR project. I analysed the emergence and development of organic apple production in Sweden and formulated a hypothesis on the root causes of disturbances reported in pest management by farmers growing organic apples. The results suggest that the formulation of pest management problems during the previous PAR project focused on development of tools to increase productivity. However, based on the historical root causes of the problems, identified by the CHAT-based analysis, a wider systemic approach is required to find sustainable solutions

How local ecosystem service management may reduce climate change impact of weed control : case studies in organic vegetable production

This study was performed in cooperation with a participatory research group called ‘Climate-Smart Agriculture – Sustainable Solutions for the Future’. It investigated how the use of local ecosystem services in organic weed management could decrease the impact on climate change of fossil fuel-intensive mechanical and thermal weeding methods. The study was designed to examine global challenges that have been internationally emphasised during recent years, such as climate change, peak oil and ecosystem degradation. A premise of the study was that it is necessary not only to increase efficiency or replace the energy source but also to perform large reductions in the total amount of energy used. Participatory research methodology and a systemic approach were used. Weed management strategies that reduce the use of fossil fuels with the help of ecosystem services were developed for three farms in consultation with their owners. An on-farm experiment with mechanically spread green mulch from fresh ley was performed on one of the farms. Other weed control methods discussed within the study included green mulch from leftover silage, intercropping vegetables with a permanent red clover ley, consumer participation in weeding, weed-competitive ley species mixes, annual ley species mixes grazed by horses in late autumn, increasing the amount of autumn-sown crops and/or ley, increasing the amount of annual crops, which are less labour-intensive than vegetables, and inter-row cultivation, i.e. vegetables transplanted into a dead cover crop. Some of the methods could be adopted immediately, while others need to be developed and tested for different local specific conditions. A sustainability evaluation tool was developed based on the system conditions of the Natural Step and spider diagrams. The tool needs further development but proved suitable for the purpose of evaluating agricultural practices from a wide perspective of sustainability and for identifying knowledge gaps concerning the sustainability of the agricultural practices. Suggestions are given on how to use participatory methods to increase the development and adoption of climate smart weed management strategies

Konceptuell modell Övervakningsmetoder för naturliga fiender i relation till skadegörarförekomst, biologi och metodernas styrkor och svagheter

A poster showing the relationship between major pests, key natural enemies and monitoring methods for natural enemies over a growing season. Based on field research in south Swedish apple orchards over several years

The process of agroecological transition : a case study from southern Brazil

This is a participatory case study together with the Non Governmental Organization (NGO) Cetap (Centro de Tecnologias Alternativas Populares) in Brazil and the farmers in two of the groups with whom Cetap cooperates. The objective of the study is to describe and evaluate the process of agroecological transition with the aim of improving it. One of the groups is made up of about 40% of the members of the village Vaca Morta. The village is localized in a strongly hilly area difficult to mechanize and the village is known for its internal strong organizational culture. Although participating they have maintained a certain independce from outsiders such as farmers unions and social movements. The second group is made up of farmers spread out over a whole municipality called Ibiraiaras. The landscape here is flatter and the agriculture more mechanized. The organizational culture of the group is weaker but a strong interconnection with farmers unions and social organization stands out in this group. These properties were chosen as criteria for election of the groups for the study since Cetap feel that they are important ingredients in several of the groups they work with. The focus of the study is to understand and hopefully improve a complex reality with all its variation in perceptions. To reach this profound understanding of the situation, as experienced by the participants, Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) was the chosen methodology. An important conclusion of the study is that agroecology is an approach and a process instead of a steady, defined state. Thereby there cannot be a transition to it. Transition is an intrinsic part of agroecology which could be defined as; Agroecology is a way of understanding and approaching the rural situation. By the help of the underlying premises and basic principles it helps us to develop a strategy of how to coevolve in a sustainable way with our natural and social environment. A biological and technological view dominates the agroecological transition in literature. This case study shows that other issues must be given more importance as: Knowledge Family Subsistence Social and Cultural Acceptance and Valuation Personal and Family Motivation Power A Plan Cooperation The two groups find themselves in quite different sociopolitical and biophysical situations which have led to quite different processes of agroecological transition. This is also reflected in which of the above mentioned elements they found most important to work with in order to improve their development

Improving full-field identification using progressive model enrichments

International audienceFull-field identification methods such as finite element model updating or integrated digital image correlation minimize the gap between an experiment and a simulation by iterative schemes. Within the algorithms residual fields and sensitivity fields are used to achieve identification. This paper discusses how these same fields can be used to assess the quality of the identification and guide toward successive enrichment of the constitutive model to progressively reduce the experiment-model gap. A cyclic experiment on a dog-bone sample made of aluminum alloy is used as an example to identify the parameters of an elastoplastic model with exponential hardening and anisotropic yielding. Published by Elsevier Ltd

Why the Water Bridge does not collapse

In 2007 an interesting phenomenon was discovered: a thread of water, the so-called water bridge (WB), can hang between two glass beakers filled with deionized water if voltage is applied to them. We analyze the available explanations of the WB stability and propose a completely different one: the force that supports the WB is the surface tension of water and the role of electric field is not to allow the WB to reduce its surface energy by means of breaking into separate drops.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

IINS, FT-IR and DFT study of the internal dynamics of [4-apyH][SbCl4SbCl_4]

A combination of infrared and inelastic incoherent neutron scattering spectroscopies with the density functional theory and semi-empirical calculations was applied to propose an assignment of the vibrational spectra of 4-aminopyridine chloroantimonate(IV)

Farmers’ management of functional biodiversity goes beyond pest management in organic European apple orchards

Supporting functional biodiversity (FB), which provides natural pest regulation, is an environmentally sound and promising approach to reduce pesticide use in perennial cultures such as apple, especially in organic farming. However, little is known about farmers’ practices and motivations to implement techniques that favor FB, especially whether or not they really expect anything from FB in terms of pest regulation. In fact, FB-supporting techniques (FB-techniques) are massively questioned by practitioners due to inadequate information about their effectiveness. An interview survey was performed in eight European countries(i) to describe farmers’ practices and identify promising FB-techniques: (ii) to better understand their perceptions of and values associated with FB; and (iii) to identify potential drivers of (non-)adoption. Fifty-five advisors and 125 orchard managers with various degrees of experience and convictions about FB were interviewed and a total of 24 different FB-techniques which can be assigned to three different categories (ecological infrastructures, farming practices and redesign techniques) were described. Some were well-established measures (e.g., hedges and bird houses), while others were more marginal and more recent (e.g., animal introduction and compost). On average, farmers combined more than four techniques that had been implemented over a period of 13 years, especially during their establishment or conversion period. In general, it was difficult for farmers to evaluate the effectiveness of individual FB-techniques on pest regulation. They considered FB-techniques as a whole, targeting multiple species, and valued multiple ecosystem services in addition to pest regulation. The techniques implemented and their associated values differed among farmers who adopted various approaches towards FB. Three different approaches were defined: passive, active and integrated. Their appraisal of FB is even more complex because it may change with time and experience. These findings provide empirical evidence that the practical implementation of promising techniques remains a challenge, considering the diversity of situations and evaluation criteria. Increased cooperation between researchers, farmers and advisors should more effectively target research, advisory support and communication to meet farmers’ needs and perceptions

Habitat manipulation

Today, there is increasing interest among Swedish growers in biological diversity within the agricultural landscape. Many scientific studies have highlighted the services performed by beneficial organisms, which can help to improve the quantity and quality of crops. One tremendously important ecosystem service is biological control of pest insects and mites. The question is what growers can actually do to increase the abundance and diversity of natural enemies and whether this will have an impact on the pest population and, more importantly, on yield and quality of the crop. Another question is whether biodiversity is always positive for growers or whether there are negative aspects that should be dealt with. These relevant questions are addressed in the present report, the aim of which is to enlarge the current knowledge base on how to improve conditions for natural enemies, so-called habitat manipulation, within annual vegetable crops and perennial apple cropping systems. However, our aim was not to conduct a complete review of all available literature, but instead to select studies that may be of particular value for advisors and growers. We also chose to include the outcomes of a workshop on increasing diversity in apple orchards and interviews with advisors and vegetable growers to investigate the attitude and state of knowledge on habitat manipulation in Sweden today. We focus on natural enemies, arthropod pests and practices applied at field scale, and therefore exclude applications developed for greenhouse crops. Our hope is that advisors and interested growers in particular will find this report relevant and rewarding