International news in brief – March/April 2014

• Panama: Release of GM mosquitoes to combat dengue

Thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes are to be released in three communities near Panama City, in an attempt to stop the spread of dengue virus. The engineered mosquitoes carry genes that arrest the vector mosquito’s cycle of development, disrupting the male mosquitoes’ reproductive capability so their offspring do not survive. Similar technologies have already been applied in Mexico, the Canary Islands and Malaysia in an attempt to battle vectorborne diseases.

Dengue, also called haemorrhagic fever, is one of the world’s fastestgrowing tropical diseases. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is its primary vector. The virus is classified by the World Health Organization as representing a “pandemic threat”, with nearly half the world’s population at risk. The virus has recently become as widespread as Russia, Portugal and the US, but subtropical regions such as Panama are particularly prone to epidemics due to a climate that encourages mosquito reproduction.

“The [modified] mosquito’s lethal gene causes death among eggs incubating in water, so it isn’t released into the environment,” said Nestor Sosa, director of the health institute responsible for the operation. The release of these mosquitoes represents less of a human health hazard than the largescale insecticide fumigation usually carried out to control Aedes aegypti.

• UAE: Light traps issued to Abu Dhabi farmers for pest control

The Abu Dhabi Farmers’ Services Centre has distributed more than 14,000 light traps to protect Abu Dhabi’s date palm trees. Light traps are being used to replace pesticide sprays because the traps are non-damaging, explains Jonathan Bradford, the Centre’s spokesman. “[Farmers] were spraying [pesticides] across a wide area, and that was taking out the palm weevil. But it was also taking out the natural enemies of the palm weevils, so the actual volume of the palm weevil was rising.”

The light traps use 150-watt lamps and are made of galvanised iron. They target fruit stalk and stem boring insects. The traps are lit from dusk until dawn and the insects, attracted to the light, fall into water inside the trap.

The Abu Dhabi Farmers’ Services Centre’s light-trap campaign, begun three years ago, will continue until all Emirate farms are covered. Its Date Palm Services Contract ensures that traps are distributed once every five years.

“The Contract between the Centre and local farmers offers a number of services in the integrated management of date palms, contributing to the continual improvement of the Emirate’s date palms,” says Christopher Hirst, chief executive of the Centre. “Pest control is an important aspect of this improvement, creating a better product that meets and exceeds international standards.”
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• UK: Eurofins invests further in pesticide testing instrumentation

  

  Eurofin Laboratory

Eurofins Food Testing UK has further expanded its expert contaminants testing capability at its Wolverhampton laboratory, with investment in a second state of the art Triple Quadrupole LC/MS system to provide additional capacity for pesticide residue testing.

Configured with extra column switching options enabling multiple methods to be run within one analytical sequence, the new system will provide additional capacity for pesticide residue testing.

This further investment will enable Eurofins to accurately analyse hundreds of compounds at an even faster rate. This will give real benefit to customers, particularly in the fresh produce industry, where results are often required within hours to maximise shelf life.
For more information contact Eurofins on 0845 604 6740 or email sales@eurofins.co.uk

• New Zealand:  Conservation computer game provides intel for scientists

The ‘Ora’ computer game, designed at the University of Canterbury (UC), New Zealand, is an ecological adventure game about saving the country’s fragile native forests from possum damage. But it is more than a game; players’ actions in tackling the problems of pest control will feed back into research on control strategies, potentially influencing management decisions. Ora has recently been named one of the top 10 global sciences games by leading UK newspaper, The Guardian.

Hazel Bradshaw, a PhD student from UC’s HIT Lab NZ, who designed Ora, says: “The game translates complex problems into fun and engaging gameplay, […] allowing the general population to get involved and contribute to serious research.”

Landcare Research, which developed an extensive computer model of possum impacts on native forests, teamed up with HIT Lab NZ to find this new way to present research and discover how people want to manage their forests – educating people about the science of pest management and forest dynamics, and understanding their perceptions and aspirations of problems and possible solutions, are important in forest conservation management.  Ora makes research results available for others to learn from and is based on real-life data and models of forest-pest-management interactions, putting knowledge at gamers’ fingertips.
Source: www.voxy.co.nz/national/uc-game-named-top-10-global-sciences-games/5/181344

• India: Second largest pest control provider comes under Indian ownership

India Value Fund Advisors (IVFA) has teamed up with Hicare founder, A. Mahendran, to acquire the ISS Hicare pest control company from Danish multinational ISS Global. The deal, including primary growth capital, is worth around Rs. 200 crore.

ISS Hicare is currently India’s second largest pest control services provider, according to IVFA. It operates across 27 cities and serves more than 100,000 residential customers and 10,000 commercial customers. The original Hicare company was founded by Godrej Industries and Mahendran Holdings in 2004, but acquired by the Danish ISS Global in 2009. The private equity firm IVFA, which manages over $1.2 billion in assets, will now support the expansion of Hicare’s branch network and the introduction of new services and products.

The Indian pest control industry is estimated at $166 million (around Rs. 1,038 crore) in size and is growing at around 15 per cent annually, driven by the country’s large and growing urban population, rising income levels and improving awareness of health and safety issues. The market has historically been serviced either by do-it-yourself products, such as insecticide sprays, or unorganised local providers. There are only two national players in the market, Pest Control of India and Hicare, along with multinationals Rentokil and SIS-Terminix.

• USA: Scotts Miracle-Gro expands into pest control

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is turning its attention to pest control. The Marysville, Ohio maker of lawn- and garden-care products plans to acquire at least one regional pest-control service company this year. The US pest-control industry currently is dominated by Rollins, which operates under the Orkin brand, and ServiceMaster, with the Terminix brand. Industry revenue was $11.1 billion and profits $858.1 million last year.

Barry Sanders, Scotts’ president and chief operating officer, says: “We are exploring acquisition opportunities in [the pest-service] space, and I wouldn’t be surprised … if we don’t make our first test acquisition in 2014. While lawn care remains the overwhelming piece of the business, [Scotts LawnService] continues to expand … into pest service, as well.”

Scotts LawnService bucked the wider company’s financial trend in its first quarter 2014 with sales that grew 3 percent to $46.2 million from a year ago. The unit’s operating profit increased threefold in that time, thanks to a high customer count and retention rate, Sanders said. The once fast-growing Scotts says it has used the years of slow consumer spending in North America and Europe to learn to plan better and more efficiently produce, distribute and market its products.

• New Zealand: Ratepayers billed thousands for pest control botch-up

A botched possum eradication programme ordered by Waikato Regional Council in 2009, in a 471-hectare block of private land in the Te Mata Forest, resulted in significant damage to sections of the pine plantation. The contractor, Fupro, did not follow industry accepted practice, securing cyanide bait bags to the trunks of the trees by 75mm nails and 50mm fencing staples and “blazing” the pines – removing bark – to set traps. Te Mata Forest Limited faced losing the bottom 600mm of each tree or sawmills rejecting the timber because of the nails. Te Mata claimed that because Furpro was only accredited to undertake the work and not “authorised”, the contractor should have been accompanied onto the property by an authorised person from the Council.

Furpro went bankrupt soon after the operation, with its indemnity insurance lapsed. Te Mata’s claim for damages fell to the Regional Council. According to a document recently obtained by the Waikato Times, the two parties settled on a payment to Te Mata of NZ $300,000, with the Regional Council (and its ratepayers) to cover NZ $30,000 and its insurer NZ $270,000. The Council’s chief executive said: “One of the steps we have taken following this case is to ensure that we now sight our contractors’ paid-up, receipted insurance policies”.
Source: www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/9694363/Ratepayers-billed-thousands-for-possum-botchup

• Canaries: A new bioinsecticide to control banana pest

The Chrysodeixis chalcites moth is regarded as one of the most serious pests in horticultural, ornamental and fruit crops. Its caterpillars feed on many plant species, including banana plants, and on the Canary Islands they can be responsible for losses of up to 30% in the total weight of the yield. In her PhD thesis at the NUP/ UPNA-Public University of Navarre, Alexandra Bernal-Rodríguez has tackled the biotechnological developments needed to obtain a new insecticide to control this pest.

The researcher used a baculovirus, which specifically infects invertebrates and naturally regulate the population of insects. “We selected a virus that displayed the best insecticidal characteristics,” she explained. “Using this virus we developed a large-scale production system by means of which we could treat a surface area equivalent to that of a football pitch using just two larvae.”

To verify the effectiveness of the bioinsecticide, the results were compared with those of chemical and biological insecticides routinely used on banana plantations on the Canary Islands. “We saw that our product is between 3 and 4 times more effective. We applied for a patent and established the bases to develop a new bioinsecticide, which is also a very useful tool for sustainable agriculture.”
Source:  www.unavarra.es/actualidad/berriak?contentId=179688

• Web: Potato leafhopper ecology and Integrated Pest Management

A new, open-access article in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management summarizes the knowledge to date on the biology of the potato leafhopper, Empoasca fabae (Harris), including its distribution, development, migration, agricultural host plants, and mechanics of injury to host plants, especially alfalfa.

Native to North America, the potato leafhopper migrates northward from the Gulf States each summer to the Midwest and eastern United States, where it is a key agricultural pest in many crops. As the key economic pest of alfalfa in the North Central and Northeast United States, yield losses have been documented up to $66/ha (or $27/acre).
In this pest profile, the authors summarize knowledge potato leafhopper life history, ecology, scouting procedures, and management options.
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• Jordan: New orange oil product registration

Oro Agri International Ltd, a Cayman Island based company that develops and manufactures innovative orange oil based products has announced that its product PREVAM™ obtained a new registration for use in Jordan. PREV-AM is a versatile insecticide, fungicide and miticide. PREV-AM incorporates the company’s proprietary OROWET™ technology and offers fast knockdown and effective control of targeted pests on a range of agricultural and horticultural crops.

This eco-friendly biopesticide, containing cold compressed orange oil, is an excellent partner in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programmes helping in resistance management and providing minimal impact on beneficial insects. PREV-AM is currently registered for use in nine countries worldwide, including France and Belgium.

More registration are expected to be granted in other EU and Middle East countries in the near future, now that Orange Oil has been formally listed under Annex 1 in Europe. Established in 2001 under the name Citrus Oil Products Inc, the ORO AGRI Group started with a single product expanding its product range, manufacturing sites and today the company has a presence in over 80 countries. The vision of the company is to be a premier provider of safe, environmentally friendly crop protection solutions worldwide.
For further information contact: info-eu@oroagri.com

• EU: Executive to harmonize organic food production

The European commission has presented new proposals geared towards making organic food production safer and easier in the 28member bloc. It said the initiative would serve both farmers and consumers. The Commission has said it plans to do away with many of the current exceptions in terms of organic food production and controls, making checks more risk-based in future.

While a press release on the Commission’s website failed to go into much detail about the planned changes, it did say new regulations would make it easier for small agricultural entrepreneurs to switch to organic farming by introducing the possibility for them to sign up to a group certification system, thus sparing them administrative costs and enhancing transparency in the production process.

The proposals also include an initiative to foster links between EU research and innovation projects in the industry. The EU executive said the proposals published on Tuesday heeded consumer and producer concerns about the future of organic farming in the bloc’s member states and addressed a series of shortcomings of the current set of regulations.

Brussels pointed out the EU’s organic market had quadrupled in size over the past decade. Therefore, the rules in place needed to be updated and adjusted to make the sector fit for future challenges. The proposals are to be submitted for approval to the European Parliament and the European Council. The suggestions are based on a broad consultation process that started in 2012 and included a series of hearings with experts on organic production.

• And finally… Australia: Heard the one about rats as big as sheep?

In a highly imaginative piece of publicity-seeking, an Australian pest control company claims rats could be about to evolve into vile, hideous creatures the size of sheep.

The pest company used as its source, a comment by Dr Jan Zalasiewicz, Senior Lecturer in Palaeobiology in the Department of Geology, University of Leicester, England. Dr Zalasiewicz, whose expertise is rocks and fossils, appears in a 10 second YouTube clip, which has been referred to as a “study” by the pest controllers and their PR consultants. In this clip, Dr Zalasiewicz says “We know rodents can evolve to very large sizes. There are fossil rodents which would have been over a tonne in weight when they were alive. And creatures evolve into the kind of shapes which are successful for them, which work for them. We know that when lots of large animals die out as when the dinosaurs died out, the smaller animals that are left can evolve to be large in their turn to take over the roles they had.”

So Palaeobiologist talking about historical evidence of small animals taking the place of bigger ones in evolutionary pecking order, when large animals die out, is stretched by pest control company saying you should exterminate your local rats immediately, before they grow to the size of sheep. Imaginative.

Published in International Pest Control – March/April2014 issue.

Tags: International Pest News

Category: International Pest News, news in brief