Pesticide Resistance Management
A workstream in A Lighter Touch for the Transition Technical Lead is to explore the current status of pesticide resistance management strategies in New Zealand, and to update these to conform with international guidelines.
A formal request was made by the New Zealand Committee for Pesticide Resistance (NZCPR) for Agcarm to become more involved in the management/coordination of pesticide resistance management. Agcarm and A Lighter Touch communicated this proposal to industry and commissioned a technical review of resistance management strategies.
Following the review, a workshop attended by interested parties was held on 28 April to further determine where there may be gaps in current strategies, if any updates were required and what new strategies need to be implemented. All of these were ranked to assign some priorities for short term industry needs.
In urgent need of attention, seven major insect pest strategies (tomato/potato psyllid, diamondback moth, aphids, thrips, mealy bug, leafrollers and storage pests) were identified. Specific crop concerns that require immediate focus were onions, avocados, greenhouse crops, potatoes, cereals, brassicas and pipfruit.
In the fungicide portfolio, seven crop-disease complexes were also identified as urgent: Psa in kiwifruit, black spot in pipfruit, powdery mildew in grapes, downy mildew in onions, late blight in potatoes and diseases in wheat and barley.
The current five-year MBIE project Managing herbicide resistance led by AgResearch and co-funded by FAR has seen continual updates in herbicide resistance management strategies on the New Zealand Plant Protection Society hosted website (https://resistance.nzpps.org/). This site will continue to be the repository for ongoing pesticide resistance management updates, but will eventually be hosted by Agcarm. A targeted three to four strategies will be updated annually over the next six years.
Article by Paul Munro, Transition Technical Lead
