Agriculture
AI crop predictor aids Africa’s crisis planning
An Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool is using satellite remote sensing and machine learning to predict agricultural yields of key crops across Africa, to help mitigate the harms of climate change and other crises, its developers say. The Africa Agriculture Watch (AAgWa) tool will aid the production of staple foods including, maize, cassava and sorghum, across […]
Functional diversification of a wild potato
Globally, huge quantities of crop protection agents are sprayed to control potato late blight. To make potato farming more sustainable and less reliant on sprays, we need crops that are inherently resistant to such diseases. “There is a continuous ‘arms race’ between the potato plant and Phytophthora,” says Vivianne Vleeshouwers, a plant scientist at Wageningen […]
IPM to fight fall armyworm
CABI scientists are recommending the use of more environmentally sustainable biological controls, as part of an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy, to fight the fall armyworm (FAW) instead of favouring more harmful pesticides. In a new paper published in the International Journal of Pest Management, Dr Justice Tambo led a team of researchers who suggest […]
Smartphone app is the farmer’s newest weapon in crop protection
Scientists are creating a new smartphone app to help farmers and growers tackle the pests destroying their crops, and it could soon have a major impact on the way information about the natural world is gathered, stored and accessed worldwide. The team of researchers from the University of Lincoln, UK, is designing and building the […]
DNA scan crop failure solution is a UK first
In a UK first, a pioneering scientific research company has introduced a new way for growers to test their plants and crops for harmful fungi and bacteria, allowing action to be taken before it’s too late. Eurofins Agro UK has introduced scientific testing to the UK which can detect an issue before it becomes visible, […]
The first isopropanol-azole is introduced to the market
Farmers face many challenges in managing their farms profitably, including fewer products available to address increasing resistance. This reduction stems from steadily tightening regulations and the difficulty of finding new active ingredients. BASF’s fungicide innovation Revysol® is the first isopropanol-azole being introduced to the market. This makes its approval in the EU an important milestone […]
Celebrating 60 years – Matthews’s memoires 1 (1950’s-60’s)
The year before International Pest Control magazine was first published, I graduated from Imperial College in 1957. On the day the results came out, I was on a one-man expedition travelling to West Africa on an Elder Dempster cargo ship, the m.v. Ebani. This was the idea of Geoffrey Brett, at the Ministry of Agriculture, […]
Advances in Precision Farming Technologies for Crop Protection
Precision farming involves the collection of data by observation and measurement, and the subsequent response. Sensing is key to the collection of data; whether this is remote from space by satellites, by aircraft or drones, or by proximal sensors used on the ground, mounted on vehicles or otherwise. Responses are increasingly automated and data are […]
