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Biocontrol News and Information
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September 1999, Volume 20 No. 3
- General News
- Training News
- Internet Round-Up
- Announcements
- Biorational
- New Books
Announcements
Are you producing a newsletter, holding a meeting, running an organization or rearing a natural enemy that you want other biocontrol workers to know about? Send us the details and we will announce it in BNI.
The organization of the International Congress
of Entomology (ICE) is well underway, and the Congress organizers are now calling for
papers. Abstracts must be received by 31 December 1999, and the rules for submission are
explained fully on the ICE website at:
http://www.embrapa.br/ice/
Email: ice@sercomtel.com.br
Also note their new fax number:
+55 41 3721415
Participants hoping to do some collecting during their visit are also asked to familiarize themselves with Brazil's rules on exploration for insects and other biocontrol agents, and to make necessary arrangements for permits well in advance. The regulations and procedures for obtaining permits are described on the website under `Collecting insects', and participants are also invited to contact the Quarantine Laboratory.
Since 1991, the EMBRAPA National Quarantine Laboratory (Laboratório de Quarentena "Costa Lima"), located in Jaguariúna, State of Sao Paulo, has interacted with researchers from different institutions to cooperate with their projects and promote biocontrol activities. Nearly 90 biocontrol agent introductions, involving predators, parasitoids and pathogens, have been processed in this time. It is one of the mandates of the Quarantine Laboratory to interact with foreign institutions for exportation of biocontrol agents under a previous cooperative agreement. The Quarantine Laboratory intends to be an overseas laboratory to foreign research institutions around the world in order to promote biological control programmes. Any participant of the XXI International Congress of Entomology is invited to contact them for information on and assistance with complying with the requirements of Brazilian law.
Contact: Laboratório de Quarentena, EMBRAPA,
Rodovia SP 340 km 127,5, CEP 13820-000, Jaguariúna-SP, Brazil
Email: lqcl-l@cnpma.embrapa.br
Fax: +55 19 8678740
Smallholder Organic Banana Workshop
Many small-scale banana farmers are facing increasing difficulty in competing directly with large-scale producers in a free market economy, and production and diversification alternatives for such growers have become clear needs. The growing interest in, and market for, organic produce by consumers in importing countries offers one possible solution. In response to this demand, CAB International, INIBAP, CTA and other collaborators are organizing a workshop in the Dominican Republic on 1-4 November 1999 to address the issues, challenges and opportunities facing smallholder producers of organic bananas.
The workshop will have a specific focus on production and marketing requirements and constraints for organic bananas produced by small-scale farmers in the Caribbean/Latin American region. It is planned that key stakeholders in the entire chain, from the field to the table (producers, research/extension services, members of banana boards, NGOs, certifiers, exporters/importers, brokers, traders and retailers) will be represented. The meeting will aim to provide an impartial forum to catalyse discussion between these main stakeholders in order to create a common understanding of the key issues involved in an organic production initiative and to determine how these might best be jointly addressed and moved forward.
The workshop will consist mainly of discussion and planning sessions, although some presentations will be given by keynote speakers and a field trip to visit organic banana production areas in the Dominican Republic will also be included. The workshop organizers also offer the possibility of a post-workshop field trip to Cuba, to view the organic production of improved Musa hybrids with resistance to major diseases. Production of these new varieties, which hold great promise for wider-scale organic production, is particularly well advanced in Cuba.
Expressions of interest in attending the Workshop are invited. It should be noted that, in order to ensure an effective dialogue, the number of participants will be restricted. Efforts will be made to ensure a balanced representation from each of the main categories of stakeholders.
Contact: [CAB International]
Mark Holderness
Email: M.Holderness@cabi.org
Fax: +44 1491 829100
M. Kairo
Email: m.kairo@cgnet.com
Fax: +1 868 663 2859
[INIBAP] E. Frison or S. Sharrock
Email: INIBAP@cgiar.org
Fax: +33 467 61 03 34
[CTA] I. Boto
Email: boto@cta.nl
Fax: +31 317 460 067
For readers whose interest has been (re)kindled by the articles in this issue on pheromones, the 25th Anniversary Jubilee Reunion of the IOBC-WPRS Working Group `Use of Pheromones and Other Semiochemicals in Integrated Control' is to be held in Samos, Greece on 25-29 September 2000. Here, new developments will be presented by researchers for researchers interested in practical solutions.
Contact: Basilis Mazomenos or Maria
Konstantopoulou, Chemical Ecology & Natural Products Laboratory,
National Centre for Scientific Research "Demokritos", GR-153 10 Ag.
Paraskevi, Athens, Greece
Email: bmazom@mail.demokritos.gr
or mkonstan@mail.demokritos.gr
There is a meeting of the Working Group before then, but the deadline for registration is 15 September. The meeting is at Hohenheim, Germany on 10-12 November 1999, and will focus on the practical use of pheromones in orchards and vineyards. But look out for the proceedings which will appear on the Working Group website.
Fewer and fewer insecticides are available for use against codling moth in Europe, and elsewhere, as resistance and bans take their tolls. In Germany, the official fruit growers' journal (Obstau) says, "legal fruit production will not be possible in the future". More and more growers are beginning to think about other methods, but have no obvious place to go for advice unless they have access, as in the USA for example, to large growers' associations. The Hohenheim meeting is intended to bridge this gap and bring together scientists and pest control advisers.
Contact: Jutta Kienzle or
Claus P.W. Zebitz, Universität Hohenheim, Institut 360, Otto Sander Str. 5,
D-70593 Stuttgart, Germany
Email: jkienzle@uni-hohenheim.de
Fax: +49 711 459 2408
Transgenic Global Working Group Newsletter
The International Organization of Biological Control (IOBC) Global Working Group on `Transgenic Organisms in Integrated Management and Biological Control' have produced their first newsletter. It contains notes on the scope and objectives of the working group and a membership directory. There is a section giving the summaries of presentations given at the symposium, Transgenic Plants in Agriculture: Agroecological Implications held during the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America at Las Vegas on 8-12 November 1998. There are articles on GM crops in Brazil and China. There are also sections giving relevant websites, recent publications and forthcoming meetings.
Contact: Angelika Hilbeck or Andrea Raps
(editors), Federal Research Station for
Agroecology and Agriculture,
PO Box 8046, Zurich-Reckenholz,
Switzerland
Email: angelika.hilbeck@fal.admin.ch
or andrea.raps@fal.admin.ch
Fax: +41 1 377 7201
The Fifth International Workshop on Biological Control and Management of Chromolaena odorata will be held in Durban, South Africa, from 23-25 October 2000. The purpose of this workshop is to facilitate the dissemination of information on the management and control of Chromolaena, to identify areas in which new research is needed, and to foster global co-operation on managing and controlling this plant.
For more information visit the Chromolaena biocontrol web page: http://www.ctpm.uq.edu.au/chromolaena/siamhome.html
Workshop contact:
Lorraine Strathie-Korrûbel, ARC-PPRI, Private Bag X6006, Hilton,
3245 South Africa
Email: ntlws@natal1.agric.za
Fax: +27 331 355 9423