Sustainable crop protection solutions that will potentially benefit multiple A Lighter Touch (ALT) sectors will be the focus of trials being planned for the forthcoming growing season.
Last month, ALT hosted its sixth annual crop protection gaps workshop involving representatives of all 13 of the programme’s product group partners. The workshop is designed to help product groups identify their most significant crop protection issues and prioritise them in terms of importance to their sector. It also helps define pests and diseases that are common to multiple sectors.
ALT transition technical lead Bruno Gatimel, who hosted the workshop, says the focus of this year’s session was on getting maximum benefit from the remaining time left in the A Lighter Touch programme to identify solutions for common crop protection gaps.
“With the programme due to end in March 2027, and all trial results needing to be reported by December 2026, that means the forthcoming year is our last full growing season to conduct trials.
“Our focus will be on conducting effective trials targeting pests and diseases which are of relevance to multiple crops. We’re seeking sustainable crop protection solutions and a lot of the new innovations are biological, microbial or physical mode of action products. Many of these target more than one pest or disease, and can therefore benefit more than one crop.”
While broad-spectrum products can be problematic in terms of their impact on non-target species, Bruno says the timing of use with biological products can offset this risk. Also, unlike broad-spectrum agrichemicals, most biological products do not have residual effects and as such are not generally subject to Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs).
Biopesticide development in New Zealand was also discussed, with guest presenter Mark Hurst of AgResearch talking to attendees about what is involved in biopesticide development, the opportunities and the challenges.
Two A Lighter Touch programme partners, Zespri and the Foundation for Arable Research, presented case studies sharing the challenges involved in developing and achieving adoption of integrated pest management (IPM) crop protection programmes for their sectors.
Bruno says it was a valuable discussion and emphasised that finding new crop protection solutions was only one part of the equation. “Effective knowledge transfer and extension to growers is equally as important in terms of uptake and actual change in crop protection practices.”
It also highlighted the value to be gained from collaboration across sectors, learning from each other and sharing results and knowledge.
A Lighter Touch has a pan-sector project underway focusing on effective integration of biocontrol options into crop protection programmes. As part of that project, extension specialist Denise Bewsell, of Scarlatti, facilitated a session on extension with attendees at the workshop.
“This session reflected the importance of effective extension in changing grower practice,” Bruno says.
“A workshop like this is the start of the process – prioritising the gaps that exist and discussing how we can work together to overcome these issues. The next step is trial work and once we have results to share, it’s vital we extend them to growers in a digestable format – not just as new individual spray options but as part of a programmed approach to crop protection.”
The analysis from this year’s gaps workshop shows soilborne diseases and thrips continue to be among the highest ranking crop protection gaps across all A Lighter Touch sectors. Weeds, both broadleaf and grasses, were also highlighted by a number of sectors as problematic due to resistance development and limited control options.
Next year’s gaps workshop will be the final one for the programme. The group discussed making it more of a solutions workshop, looking at both interim and longer term options available to each sector.
