Trans-Pest
The Trans-Pest project, part of the Biocontrol 4.0 initiative, addresses the impact of climate change on the effectiveness of bioinsecticide solutions in crop protection across the France-Wallonia-Flanders region. It focuses on understanding environmental variations' effects on current solutions and improving their resilience and application under changing climatic conditions.
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limate change is a major obstacle to Europe's ambition to reduce the use of synthetic pesticides. These limitations have been particularly highlighted in European roadmaps such as the Green Deal. Climate change affects to varying degrees the interactions between cultivated plants and other organisms, such as agricultural pests and their natural enemies that provide biological control services. They also affect the effectiveness of green and natural products used for pest control purposes. It is therefore necessary to consider the effects of global change on the way we approach integrated crop protection in Europe. The effectiveness of currently available solutions and the implementation of new ecosystem-based approaches and natural products against pests of different crops could be affected by these changes. As a result, there is a strong expectation on the part of the agricultural sector as a whole, and throughout the study area concerned, to be able to identify with as much precision as possible bioinsecticide solutions that are innovative, effective, sustainable and resilient to environmental change.
The France-Wallonia-Vlaanderen cross-border area is a production basin mainly based on arable farming (cereals, oilseeds, sugar beet and potatoes), market gardening (leeks, onions, strawberries and other crops) and orchards (apple and pear trees). As a result, the problems faced by growers, and more generally by the players in the various agricultural sectors involved, as well as the bioinsecticide solutions developed, are similar in the different regions. These solutions are based on the use of pathogens (e.g., entomopathogenic fungi), predatory auxiliary organisms (e.g., lacewings, mites, bugs) and parasitoids (e.g., Encarsia and Aphidius wasps) of agricultural pests common to the region concerned, as well as the use of essential plant oils, semiochemicals, bacterial lipopeptides and various natural bioinsecticides. Pests common to the region are defoliators affecting plant growth and crop yield (e.g., Colorado beetles), biting-sucking arthropods causing tissue damage and transmitting viruses (e.g., aphids, psyllids, whiteflies, thrips, mites) or those attacking fruit or roots (e.g., wireworms, leafminers).
To address these issues, the Trans-Pest project, part of the Biocontrol 4.0 project portfolio, will initially aim to better understand the effect of environmental variations, and consequently climate change, on the efficacy of existing bioinsecticide solutions. This challenge will be met mainly in laboratory and semi-controlled environments, by adopting a multidisciplinary approach to the crops and pests targeted in the portfolio. In particular, environmental changes are leading to modifications in the relationships between plants and insects, bringing new challenges for arthropod pest control. Secondly, the project will focus on improving bioinsecticide solutions or their use to meet the challenges brought about by different climate change scenarios in the regions and on the crops concerned by the project. It is indeed essential to intelligently adapt the protocols proposed to farmers, or to improve the resistance of biocontrol products in the face of increasing climatic hazards.
The combination of these two work modules will lead to a better understanding of the challenges posed by climate change on crop protection through the use of bioinsecticides. They will lead to the production of qualitative and quantitative analyses, both in the laboratory and in the field, which will be used to inform farmers and the general public about these issues, and to suggest ways of improving the fight against agricultural pests.
Several cross-border operators, including companies, research structures and agricultural technical structures, will thus work together on common crops and pests, while contributing their own expertise on certain bioinsecticide solutions, thus creating synergies and fertile ground for future projects.
Contacts
Kévin Tougeron (UMons - leader)
