In September 2021 we started the big field experiment in the Piedmont region, a highly infested zone. Giovanni Bosio from the plant health service of the Piedmont region found meadows which were not treated yet and with willing owners to let us do ex...
In collaboration with colleagues from CREA (Florence), we have treated popillias with three experimental control protocols that appear as promising candidates in their hands. Treated popillias have been snap frozen for molecular analysis. In the next...
Definitely not my ususal workweek! I am an economist at the Technical University of Munich, usually sitting in an office with a computer and conducting research there. But not this time… As I am part of the IPM Popillia project, which consists o...
In our Citizen Science design studio in Vienna, Austria, SPOTTERON creates an advanced Citizen Science platform for providing reliable and high-quality apps for crowd-based data collection and community engagement. Coming from various backgrounds, our team designs and develops interactive applications in close collaboration with research projects a...
ABOUT THE PROJECT IPM-Popillia project, funded by @EU Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, has started in September 2020. Our expert team, presented earlier on this blog post, has been working on a monitoring device with the aim of P. japonica detection and monitoring. The insect traps our team evolved inclu...
About TUM The Technical University of Munich (TUM), founded in the year 1868, is a leading university in fields such as environmental sciences and engineering, medical technology and biotechnology or agricultural sciences and food science, and is repeatedly rated as one of Germany´s and Europe´s top universities. The QS World University Ranki...
About Pessl Instruments GmbH Pessl Instruments GmbH has been producing reliable measuring instruments for 37 years and has developed various devices for the measurement and monitoring of different agricultural parameters, being one of the leading IoT providers for agriculture offering innovative and cost-effective solutions for more efficient farm ...
The Japanese beetle, historically present in Japan, managed to invade the United States of America during the 20th century and has recently been detected in both Canada and Europe. In Europe, the beetle has invaded almost all of the Azores islands (Portugal) and covers an area ranging from the north of Italy (Lombardia and Piemonte) to the south of...
Entomopathogenic fungi are micro-organisms naturally occurring in the environment, most of all in soil. They are natural parasites of insects that proliferate killing their host. Metarhizium is one of the most used ones in biological control. The CREA team has isolated a Metarhizium robertsii strain called 17/T02 ...
What would a Japanese beetle spread cost us? - That is one of the questions which our team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is trying to answer. The question is simple; however, the answer is complex, depending on several unknown factors such as the potential damage the beetle can cause to different crops. For this reason, we have...
Agroscope is the Swiss centre of excellence for agricultural research, with the overarching objectives to contribute to a competitive and sustainable agriculture and food sector as well as to an intact environment. Agroscope coordinates the project IPM-Popillia and leads the tasks 2.3 (ecology of biocontrol applications), 3.2 (entomopathogenic fung...
The IPM-Popillia brandmark shows an illustration of the Popillia japonica with its typical iridescent copper-coloured elytra and the green thorax and head. The beetle is placed on a yellow circle underground, which symbolises a warning colour, according to the destructive nature of the Popillia japonica. The brandmark can be used in combination wit...