International Pest Control – January/February 2023 – Vol 65, Nr.1

IPCadmin | February 7, 2023

COVER IMAGE: Polar bears face a loss of the sea ice on which they depend to hunt seals and build up their reserves against the extreme cold of the artic winter.
Picture by Frances McKim

We seem to lurch from one food crisis to another and we report on the plea from Alvaro Lario, President of the UN’s IFAD for real investment in the worlds’ small scale farmers who produce one third of the world’s food with just 2% of global finance. Twitter is being used to track pests, but not from their tweets! While in the UK super-rats are on the move. The CABI portal has reached – and probably exceeded by now – a million visits, suggesting this is a much appreciated resource.

We have an extensive report from BCPC Harrogate by Prof Graham Matthews and Dr Robin Blake. We also have a fascinating report from the AAB Biocontrol conference by Prof Matthews and we finish with a short look at this year’s UK PestTech. It would seem this is also the time of year for associations to announce new boards with several new or changed teams in place.

In company news we cover the corporate ambitions, acquisitions, and product launches of several of the key players in the pest control marketplace including Koppert, Nature-Cide, Orkin, Seipasa, Syngenta and BASF.

Our Special Feature this issue is “Climate Change” and we had so many articles of interest that some will be appearing in our next issue! It would seem there is no aspect of our industry that is not impacted by the changing climate. One session of the FAOPMA Pest Summit 2022 was on climate change and Frances McKim has provided an excellent introduction to our feature with an overview of the speakers’ presentations.

This is followed up by our own Dr Partho Dhang who was a speaker at the conference and who tackles the impact of climate change on urban pest management.

From there Dr Terry Mabbett looks at how spring has sprung in the UK – about six months early! At Rothamsted they are concerned about the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Dr Mabbett asks if UK forestry is ready for the changing climate. While in Wyoming they have used fossils to determine how insect damage is on the up. At Uppsala University the concern is that hotter days leads to shorter lives for pollinators. And researchers at the University of Maryland have tabulated the effect of climate change on insects and on the wider ecosystem of which they are part.

BASF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are hoping that the 35 million nets they have distributed in 16 sub-Saharan countries will go some way to reducing the incidence of malaria and deaths.

Leafhoppers are being tracked by a team at the Illinois Natural History Survey to see how they spread disease. Weedy rice is fighting back and has become herbicide resistant. While in Northern Europe thrips are threatening peppers.

The good news is that a weevil may save the UK up to £16.8 million. HLB – Huanglongbing – is a growing threat almost anywhere citrus are found with no viable way for growers to fight back. In Brazil its spread seems to be linked to inadequate psyllid control. Food security is back on the agenda for our final article which looks at a new banana fungus that is spreading rapidly and which is now out of control in Africa where bananas are an important part of the diet.

In our next issue we will be looking at Pesticide Application Developments so if you have some interesting research to communicate or want to report on a new use for an old technology please let us know.

Chris Endacott, Editor International Pest Control magazine
Email Chris on editor@international-pest-control.com