In his talk “Landscapes, genetically modified crops and climate change: Whither IPM?” he addressed the topic of integration and precision in two case studies, Helicoverpa management in cotton and Plutella xylostella in brassica vegetables in Australia. The cost and usage of plant protection agents in Australia is increasing while agriculture is facing a drastic change in environmental conditions, not only by the ongoing climate change. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare for new pest control scenarios. Further on, he highlighted a repetitive problematic procedure: when spraying fails, risk management is being conducted, followed by returning to the old practices, which initially caused the problem. Of particular interest was his finding, that the introduction of GMO cotton significantly affected the North American population of monarch butterflies, as a side effect. His talk clearly indicated the need to be aware of upcoming changes in plant protection induced by the ongoing change of the environmental conditions.
Subsequent to his opening speech, we were given the exceptional opportunity to interview Prof. Zaluki for the IPPC student-reporter blog:
Junior Scientists:
The slogan of this years´ IPPC is „Mission possible - Food for all through appropriate plant protection“. Do you think IPM strategies are a promising approach to achieve this goal - even in terms of climate change - and why?
Myron Zalucki:
IPM is an approach for pest management, its idea is to minimize the pest pressure and maximize yields without disrupting life, environment and universe. All IPM systems have to be aware of the valuable impacts of climate - in some parts of the world even more than in others. It´s a system that always has to adapt to the given circumstances, because agriculture is always developing.
Indeed, food security is the major goal to achieve in future - therefore agricultural production systems are one part, as well as efficient political systems to ensure that those systems are admitted and can be applied.
Junior Scientists:
Where might be limitations of IPM?
Myron Zalucki:
The limitation of any approach is always its implementation. The issue is how do we change the way people approach agriculture and management, so that they see a benefit in doing things differently.
Junior Scientists:
Which steps are most important to take within the implementation of IPM all over the world?
Myron Zalucki:
Encourage education - the ability to question knowledge - is to mention first, as well as the obligation to get researchers and research institutes more involved with local farmers to really detect the problems they are faced with. Other aspects are changes in politics and industry. The problem in politics is that it´s too opinion-driven and short-term for extensive agricultural changes, that take longer periods to be established effectively.
Junior Scientists:
Do you assume that todays plant protection practices are able to adequately monitor, identify and react on alternating pest situations induced by a change of the environment? That is what you do, but is that also generally done?
Myron Zalucki:
Growers in the field that detect unknown pests/diseases will alert researchers of these changes. Afterwards people can map changes over the years and create huge databases, which I generally would advice. In addition to this, we also need policy makers, who enable new research projects.
Junior Scientists:
In your talk you brought the example of GMO´s introduced in the cotton belt in the US resulting in a decrease of Monarch butterflies. Are we capable of identifying changes and their putative effects on this scale?
Myron Zalucki:
The sad part is we really should have been able to foresee this ahead of time, but we didn’t. That is one of the big challenges for researchers and policy makers. When a new technique to cope with diseases is established, we have to think about the effects it has. A measure of how good science is, is whether it can make predictions over time or not. We have to keep this in regard for future projects.
From Myron Zalucki´s talk and the interview with him it became clear, that we need to adapt to a changing world, changing people, landscapes and agriculture. To really progress, we have to be open-minded regarding revolutionary techniques that could help us to ensure food security on earth and in the same way pay enough attention to possible risks that might come with these techniques.
Day 3 offered a great set of plenary sessions, making the choice which to visit more than difficult. Here we present you our today’s menu of ongoing research in Integrated Plant Protection:
Precision farming:
The precision farming session 2015 gave us an overview about the current focus of spray application research. Jens Karl Wegener from JKI addressed application problems in vertical crops, such as streaking. He presented the individual influence of nozzle type, nozzle to target area-distance, air assistance and application pressure, underlining that all these parameters interact. Tanja Pelzer, from JKI, was addressing the goal of the national action plan for sustainable use of plant protection agents, by her research on optimizing gap detection and switching system in grapes. Herein, proceedings in sensor technologies provide promising perspectives. Stefan Kiefer from Amazone initially introduced us into the influences of dewfall on spray applications, correlating lower levels of humidity with decrease spray application efficacy. His results display differential new situations, thus humidity levels within 24 hours.
Disease monitoring:
The very basis of a successful pest control is an efficient disease monitoring, according to the actual state of the art. Here we achieved great insights into current high-tech approaches, involving hyperspectral imaging, IR-thermography and unmanned aerial vehicles. At this point agriculture forms a brilliant conjunction with modern technologies. Disease distributions in the field are heterogeneous. In this respect Erich-Christian Oerke provided a detailed overview about actual sensor technics, outlining method specific capabilities and limitations.
Host-pathogen interactions differ in time and space, resulting in distinct hyper spectral signatures of diseased plants. This enables Anne-Katrin Mahlein to use Hyperspectral imaging for identification and quantification of different leaf diseases such as net blotch, rust and powdery mildews in barley. Additionally, Nadja Arens demonstrated how Cercospora beticola infections can be identified by making use of the differential leaf metabolism. Afterwards, Ali al Masri presented his IR-thermography studies, thus measuring the surface temperature of objects. This approach is capable of detecting different Fusarium ssp. in early and late infection stages. Last but not least, Luis Martins presented how model airplanes can be used to observe the pest situation in chestnut trees in large areas.
After a remarkable day as student reporters at the IPPC in Berlin 2015, we´re now looking forward to give the day a perfect end in networking with you at the dinner of the social evening.
Best regards,
Verena & Roman
Pictures were taken by Philipp Jarkusch (Conventus)
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