Australia
March 22, 2007
Cotton Seed Distributors
article
Mark, what can you tell us
about the National Priority Team for aphids?
The extension team decided that there was a need in the industry
to look at aphid management and in particular how to manage
aphids in an IPM friendly way.
Last year I think, many growers in New South Wales saw aphids
were becoming a problem towards the end of the season and in
Queensland whitefly were becoming a bit of an issue. So the
Extension team decided there was a need to look at ways of
packaging extension material that reflects what the latest
research is in terms of aphids and get that out to the industry
so that they can adopt it. The priority team was a good way of
bringing researchers and extension people together to help
develop those packages.
So I am right in saying that within that team you have got
researchers, extension and also commercial people within the
industry such as consultants?
Absolutely. I think that it is very important that we get the
consultants and the growers input into that package for that
extension material and to make sure that we get other people
like Cotton Australia (as well are involved in that team). So it
is a really good cross blend of researchers who are working in
the world of aphids and also extension people.
So what has the team done to date?
To date we have had one meeting at Narrabri which was an ‘Aphid
Research Review’ where we have got all the researchers involved
in aphids together to review what we know about the cotton aphid
and what some of the latest research is. Throughout that meeting
we identified some priorities that we could look at in the
future and work out what extension material we have got
available now and what needs to be developed so that we can get
some material out to the growers to be adopted for this season.
At this meeting you reviewed some key new research that has
been done on aphids. Can you tell us some of the highlights from
that?
Well some of the highlights I took away from it was:
• Some work on micro-satelliting. There is some work happening
where we are actually been able to identify clones of aphids and
where they have come from. That has flow on impacts in terms of
working out where resistance may be coming from.
• We heard from some researchers who have been looked into how
petroleum spray oils actually work. There is some really
exciting work happening there.
• Lewis Wilson in particular has done some work on developing a
new aphid threshold tool for the industry.
Where are these things going to go to now?
The next step from here is having identified the opportunities
and packaged the extension material, what we are going to do is
work with people like Lewis and take his research and put it
into a practical solution form and deliver that to industry. We
are hoping to start rolling that out probably at the end of
February early March so growers will get to see what the new
aphid threshold might look like and what some adjustments to
their monitoring techniques might be.
Other packages or other information we are developing is trying
to develop an IPM friendly system or suggestions for growers to
help them manage aphids. Obviously in this current environment
when you spray for any pest it has an impact on another pest so
we have seen in the past with pests such as mirids. We want to
make sure that when people are managing for mirids, that they
are not actually selecting for resistance in aphids as well. So
those sort of tools and information are hopefully coming out
towards the end of this year.
So growers are going to be expecting to see some new
thresholds for aphids and that sort of thing flowing out of this
team in the very near future?
I hope so. Lewis Wilson has certainly done the good research and
is fairly confident in his research results to date. What we
need to do now is to work out how best to extend that
information out to industry and to come up with a practical way
for growers to adopt it in the field. So it’s my expectation
that by towards the end of February and certainly by the end of
the season, growers will see an alternative to the way they
manage aphids and monitoring techniques for the aphids.
If you want any more information about the activities of the
Aphid Priority Team you can contact Mark Hickman at the
DPI & F in Toowoomba or contact your local cotton extension
officer. |
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