2021 PEST MANAGEMENT RESEARCH REPORT – CALL FOR REPORTS

From: The Canadian Phytopathological Society and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

To: All Canadian researchers in pest management

 Re: 2021 PEST MANAGEMENT RESEARCH REPORT – Insect Pests and Plant Diseases – CALL FOR REPORTS

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PUBLISHING RESULTS OF THE 2021 CROP YEAR FOR AUTHORS AND SECTION EDITORS

One of the objectives of the Pest Management Research Report (PMRR) is to facilitate the exchange of information on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) among persons involved in research and advisory services on IPM of insect pests and plant diseases of importance to the agri-food industry in Canada. To this end, the PMRR is published annually as a compilation of research reports by federal and provincial government, university and industry research and advisory personnel. These reports aid the development of recommendations for insect and disease management programs throughout Canada. They report on all aspects of pest management, including cultivar and management responses, and are available to support the registration of pest control products.

To increase the value of the report, everyone in Canada who is conducting studies involving pest management in agriculture is urged to report their results from 2021 in the format outlined in the attached guide (also available in French). The reports should ideally be 1-2 pages long and may be submitted in either French or English. Authors are requested to ensure they have the registrants’ approval to submit data about their products to a publicly available journal.

Because the Canadian Agricultural Insect Pest Review is no longer published, the PMRR now includes a section – Surveys and Outbreaks: Insects and Mites, to fill the information gap left by the loss of this annual publication. Results of field surveys to assess presence, abundance and distribution of new or established species can be reported in this section in the same format as for other reports in the PMRR. Reports of insect and mite outbreaks should include acreage of crop infested and location(s), control actions taken or product(s) used to minimize crop loss, crop loss assessment where possible, and results of control actions.

Full writing and submission instructions are here.

The 1995-2020 editions of the PMRR are available for viewing and download at http://phytopath.ca/publication/pmrr/.

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Janzen, Goff and Sheppard – Icons of Decomposition Ecology and Applied Outcomes: Where Are We Today?

You are cordially invited to a webinar by Dr. Jeffery K. Tomberlin from the Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, USA.

Janzen, Goff and Sheppard – Icons of Decomposition Ecology and Applied Outcomes: Where Are We Today?

Time 9.00 AM – 10.00 AM (GMT+8)
8.00 PM – 9.00 PM (GMT-5)
Date 29 September 2021 – Wednesday (GMT+8)
28 September 2021 – Tuesday (GMT-5)
Registration Free
Location Google Meet (https://meet.google.com/mpk-xdvi-tyz)

Youtube Live (https://youtu.be/NEdKwan6Bn8)

E-certificates will be provided.

You are kindly requested to click on the following link for registration https://forms.gle/P5cb1n5Y34f9ipK77

 We will send the information related to the webinar in the email that you provide.

Thank you.

Secretariat,
Fun Ento Lab International Webinar Series

Contact us via email fun.entolab@gmail.com for any inquiries related to the webinar.

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Meeting announcement – International Society of Chemical Ecology

Meeting announcement – International Society of Chemical Ecology

We would like to invite you to attend the annual general meeting 5-10 September, 2021. For the first time ever the ISCE annual meeting will be an entirely virtual meeting but numerous mechanisms have been built into the program and platform being used to host the meeting, to facilitate interaction by delegates with each other and the content. The theme of the conference “Chemical Ecology and Sustainable Development” emphasizes the immense potential chemical ecology has to both inform our understanding of the natural world and the potential for practical applications.

Please visit the meeting website (https://isce2021.carlamani.com/) to view the program and register. In addition to being able to participate in the live event 5-10 September, registration provides delegates the opportunity to view talks for 2 months after the meeting. We look forward to seeing you virtually at the meeting. Please don’t hesitate to contact the meeting organizers if you have any questions or concerns.

Best wishes,

Jeremy Allison
Bernard Slippers
Francois Roets
Christian Pirk
(ISCE 2021 Organizing Committee)

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Insect Olfaction and Taste in 24 Hours Around the Globe

Insect Olfaction and Taste in 24 Hours Around the Globe

From 9am Pacific Daylight Time, Wednesday August 11 to 5pm British Summer Time, Thursday August 12

Co-Hosts:

Walter S. Leal, UC Davis, USA

Wynand van der Goes van Naters, Cardiff University, UK

Coral Warr, La Trobe University, Australia

We travel west around the globe

Preface by John G. Hildebrand

Opening Lecture by Josefina del Mármol

Confirmed Invited/Keynote Speakers: Richard Benton, Greg Jefferis, Leslie Vosshall, Ke Dong, Zain Syed, Jeff Riffell, Sylvia Anton, Frederic Marion-Poll, Anupama Dahanukar, Marcus Stensmyr, John Pickett, Melissa Jordan, Guirong Wang & Silke Sachse

Contributed Presentations by:

Hany Dweck, Ilona Grunwald Kadow, Chris Potter, Jessica Zung, Ben Matthews, Sharon Hill, Mario Pannunzi, Naoko Toshima, Mahmut Demir, Erika Plettner, David Heckel, Zepeng Yao, Carolina Reisenman, Yael Grosjean, Preeti Sareen, Craig Montell, Pinky Kain, Xi Chu, Bente Berg, Kosuke Tateishi, Hidehiro Watanabe, Jayaprakas C. A., Emmanuelle Jacquin- Joly, Walter S. Leal, Ani Agnihotri, Jason Pitts, and others

Access no-cost registration here: https://bit.ly/3k68c2m

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ESC/ESO 2021 Jam

Please virtually join us for the 2021 Entomological Society of Canada and Entomological Society of Ontario Joint Annual Meeting

When: 15–18 November 2021

Where: The virtual meeting will be hosted by Showcare. A dedicated virtual meeting website will be announced in the Fall.

Dates to know:

  • Registration opens — July 5th
  • Early-bird deadline — August 9th
  • Presentation submission deadline — September 13th

 

For more information on the theme of the meeting, keynote speakers and planned symposia: https://www.entsocont.ca/esceso-2021-jam-english.html

We hope to see you virtually in the fall!

Register now!

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Announcing the Seventeenth Annual Photo Contest

Seventeenth Annual Photo Contest

The 17th Annual Photo Contest to select images for the 2022 covers of The Canadian Entomologist and the Bulletin of the Entomological Society of Canada is underway. The cover images are intended to represent the breadth of entomology cove red by the Society’s publications. Insects and non-insects in forestry, urban or agriculture; landscapes, field, laboratory or close-ups; or activities associated with physiology, behaviour, taxonomy or IPM are all desirable. A couple of ‘Featured Insects’ are also needed. If selected, your photo will grace the cover of both publications for the entire year. In addition, winning photos and a selection of all submitted photos will be shown on the ESC website.

See above link for contest rules.

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National Insect Appreciation Day 2021

On June 8th, we invite you to celebrate National Insect Appreciation Day (NAIAD) with thousands of insect enthusiasts, amateurs, and professionals all across Canada. For a second year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the celebrations will take place online. Hence, it will still be possible to participate in the “insect picture challenge” on social media. We hope that this challenge will prompt the public to develop their curiosity towards insects and raise awareness about the presence of insects all around us.

In order to participate in the challenge, a person will have to post a least one picture of an insect during the National Insect Appreciation Day on June 8th. When posting the photo, the participant should include associated hashtags and nominate five friends by inviting them to also post an insect picture.

Hashtags:

 #InsectPictureChallenge #NationalinsectDay

How a hashtag works:

 A hashtag makes it possible for other users to easily find messages and post with a specific theme or content. Simply use the hashtag on social media (Facebook, Instagram or Twitter) and make sure that your photograph is public.

For more information, and to download resource material, go to:

https://esc-sec.ca/entomology-resources/naiad-national-insect-appreciation-day/

Sponsored by the Entomological Society of Canada (https://esc-sec.ca/)

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Berm Outreach Day: The importance of enhanced non-crop habitat for beneficial insects in intensive agricultural landscapes

by Dillon Muldoon, MSc student

Me on one of my newly planted berm research plots. Photo by Jenni Dunning.

While driving up highway 400 for that cottage getaway in the Muskokas, you’ll pass by a little slice of Ontario agriculture on some of the darkest soil you’ve ever seen. But be careful: If you blink, you might miss this beautiful place known as the Holland Marsh. Located 50 km north of Toronto, the Holland Marsh is known for its intensive production of carrots, onions, and over 60 other horticultural crops. The Marsh contributes over 1 billion dollars to the Ontario economy through the production, processing, and shipment of vegetables.

For my MSc project, I’m looking at ways to enhance ecosystem services in the Holland Marsh. Ecosystem services are benefits humans gain from ecosystems, which can include water and air purification, carbon sequestration, agricultural pest management, and crop pollination. My research specifically focuses on enhancing non-crop areas so that they can provide better habitat for pollinators and natural enemies of crop pests. Studies show that the enhancement of “naturalized” non-crop areas (e.g., hedgerows, field margins, riparian areas, mowed grass) with vegetative and floral plantings can help support the abundance and diversity of beneficial insects within an intensive agricultural system. The habitat provided for these beneficial insects can offer several ecosystem services to growers, from pollination of crops to assisting with crop pest control. Until recently, the Holland Marsh had almost no non-crop habitat. In 2010 the Holland Marsh Drainage System Canal Improvement Project was initiated, and at its completion in July 2016, 19 km of canals had been relocated and dredged, and 10 km of berms (dykes) had been expanded to improve safety and efficiency. This expansion of the berms increased the amount of non-crop habitat in the Holland Marsh. My study investigates how different vegetative enhancements on the canal berms might affect beneficial insect complexes and agricultural pest populations at the Holland Marsh. I’m using both active and passive trapping to assess the abundance and diversity of natural enemies, pollinators, and insect pest populations in two different vegetative enhancements throughout the growing season.

Me at Berm Day explaining the importance of non-crop habitat. Photo by Jenni Dunning.

Although vegetative enhancements can be beneficial, stakeholders were concerned about the possibility that the enhancements could provide a refuge for pests (e.g., insects, weeds, vermin) and that they may not be aesthetically pleasing. To address these concerns, I orchestrated a public and grower outreach day (Berm Day) on July 5, 2019 with help from funding by the Entomological Society of Ontario. The goal of Berm Day was to connect with the public and growers about the importance of enhancing non-crop habitat to support beneficial insects in intensive agricultural systems. I hoped to create a dialogue surrounding the importance of ecosystem services, and to disseminate some of my findings. My study has shown that vegetative enhancements support a greater abundance of natural enemies than the natural berm vegetation and increase floral resources for pollinators. The enhancements have not provided a refuge for primary insect pests of the crops grown at the Holland Marsh.

Overall, Berm Day was a great success. I connected with local growers, members of the public, master gardeners, conservation authorities, and members of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, over some fresh baked goods and coffee. We opened a dialogue about the project and shared ideas for future research, including management approaches and new seed mixes to improve the aesthetics appeal of the plantings. Everyone who attended left with a package of Ontario Native Seed Mix to plant at home, which was generously provided by Syngenta’s Operation Pollinator Multifunctional Landscapes.

I have heard once or twice that diversity is the spice of life, and within an intensive agricultural system, it can play an important role by offering numerous benefits for both growers and natural ecosystems. The conservation and enhancement of non-crop habitat can help provide ecosystem services in the Holland Marsh by increasing and supporting beneficial insects.

A special thanks to all the volunteers, advisors, the Muck Crops Research Station’s staff, Paul Hoekstra, and the Entomological Society of Ontario for making this day possible.

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