EU China Lever form IPM demonstration (EUCLID)

EUCLID’s goal is to contribute to securing food production while developing sustainable production approaches to be used in European and Chinese agricultures. EUCLID has the ambition to deliver the simultaneous optimisation of current pest management methods and the development of novel ones, and to promote their rapid adoption through the design of IPM packages and exploitation by end-users. This will reduce the dependence of European and Chinese farmers on chemical pesticides in selected key farming systems in both regions. The concerns about the risks posed by the current extensive use of chemical pesticides led the EU to reduce the range of plant protection active ingredients available to EU farmers in 2009. In this new regulatory context combined with the current slower rate of discovery of new compounds, farmers are facing the challenge of maintaining their production while relying less on chemical pesticides. The contribution of Plant Protection and Precision Agriculture groups in Agrotecnio to EUCLID is focused on the implementation of new approaches of biological control in protected tomato and the development of an innovative tool to spray the appropriate dose of a pesticide according to the specific canopy to control a pest in grapes.
In biological control work, new macrobials are being tested to control tomato pests to improve the efficacy of currently available agents; additionally, the project aims to identify the key characteristics of agricultural landscape surrounding a greenhouse for its better colonization by naturally occurring predators. It is expected to know which kind of ecological infrastructures may enhance conservation biological control of greenhouse tomato pests. In the section of optimization of chemical control in grapes, the aim is to validate the ‘Dosafruit’ tool that has shown good performance in apple and pear orchards in vineyards conditions. For this field trials will be carried out to measure control efficacy, residue reduction, and improved selectivity.