Ann Cryer, Chairman, all-Party gardening & Horticulture Group click link for full article
Archive for May, 2009
EU committee to scrutinise variable crop standards
Horticulture Week
29 May 2009
The way protected crops are grown organically is likely to come under scrutiny as the EU’s standing committee on organic farming seeks to fill gaps in European regulations which came into force in January.
Roger Hitchings, head of the advisory service at the Elm Farm Organic Research Centre, said that both old and new regulations had been based on field production.
“There’s an absence of specifics to allow every state to take a common view on protected cropping,” he said.
For instance, some Scandinavian countries had chosen to interpret EU rules as allowing the production of protected crops in grow bags rather than in soil, as was accepted practice in the UK. That meant they were not only shortcutting the conversion process but also changing the definition of “organic”, he said.
Hitchings said the certification body in Iceland’s detailed standards for organic protected cropping state production must be soil-based, and that “These standards have informed the UK’s position”.
Defra proposes time limits for pre-2003 abstraction licences
Horticulture Week
29 May 2009
Growers’ water abstraction licences granted before the Water Act 2003 could be time-limited in future if new Defra proposals go ahead.
New licences are issued with a time limit. Defra has attempted to encourage holders of unlimited historic licences to convert voluntarily, without success. Now it hopes to make time-limiting mandatory.
In a consultation about the proposals, Defra said the “do nothing” option is not viable. “It would hamper our ability to meet the requirements of relevant EU directives and respond to pressures such as climate change and population increase,” it said.
The consultation puts forward two other options: targeting certain licences for change, or changing all historic licences.
Licences likely to be targeted are those in catchments that are already over-abstracted or over-licensed or at high risk of reduced water availability in the future.
Licences for particular uses could also be targeted. But Defra admits targeting could be difficult to apply and its preferred option is to introduce universal mandatory time limiting, which would need new legislation.
It commented that this approach would also promote more water trading.
Keith Weatherhead, senior lecturer in water resources and irrigation at Cranfield University, said time-limited licensing had been mooted by the Environment Agency, which is responsible for managing water resources, for some time.
“The agency has got a problem – water resources are going to reduce if climate change forecasts are correct. There is an inequity issue between all the water users.”
He said growers would have to increase water efficiency and look for alternative water resources, particularly water storage.
The NFU is currently preparing a briefing paper for its members. The consultation closes on 4 August.
HDC-funded research project set to investigate causes of scab in apples
Horticulture Week
29 May 2009
Apple growers whose scab control is inadequate should soon know whether it is due to the development of fungicide-resistant strains of the pathogen or simply poor spraying.
The answer may be found by a two-year Horticultural Development Company (HDC)-funded project being undertaken at East Malling Research by Dr Xiangming Xu.
Although there is anecdotal evidence that some scab strains from orchards regularly sprayed with a triazole fungicide appear to have reduced sensitivity to the product, he believes that most scab control failures are due to poor spray timing. Nevertheless, in the US and Canada the overuse of triazole (or DMI) fungicides has led to the emergence of scab strains that are less sensitive to these products. In the long term this may result in poor control of the disease.
The project’s main aim is to generate information on the baseline sensitivity of the scab population to the widest-used fungicides. This will enable growers to develop more sustainable anti-resistance strategies to control the disease.
Xu warned that if reduced scab sensitivity to one fungicide exists, care would be needed to select alternatives without jeopardising disease control and resistance management. The possibility of loss of fungicides (such as the triazoles under the new EU pesticide legislation) makes anti-resistance management even more important, he maintained.
HDC communications manager Andrew Tinsley said that in Canada a number of fungal diseases have quickly developed resistance to kresoxim-methyl, a strobilurin widely used on apples, vines (and arable crops) but so far there is no evidence of that happening in fruit here, although it has in cereals.
“We’re trying (in the scab project) to discover exactly what’s happening in orchards rather than what growers think is happening,” Tinsley explained
Controlling flea beetles on leavy salad brassicas
Science into practice: Controlling flea beetles on leavy salad brassicas
by HDC
Horticulture Week
29 May 2009
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Even small numbers of adult flea beetles feeding on high-value speciality brassicas grown for salads can cause shot-holes in the leaves, which significantly reduces quality and thus marketability.
Control of this pest has been exacerbated by the withdrawal of key insecticides and by the increase in the acreage of rape, which acts as a reservoir for brassica pests.
HDC project FV 301 is investigating what control strategies growers can use in the future, combined with a better understanding of the life cycle of the flea beetle.
After two years, several chemical treatments have been identified as giving significant control, applied as sprays and one used as a seed treatment. They will be trialled again this summer, as flea beetle pressure was relatively low during the trial period in 2008, in order to confirm results with a more rigorous test.
The well-proven control technique of using nylon crop meshes, like Wondermesh and Enviromesh, as physical barriers provided the best protection in the first two years of trials. Insecticide-impregnated mesh provided the same level of protection as crops under standard mesh that had also been sprayed. However, pre-treated mesh would be more expensive, effective for only a year and personal protective equipment would need to be worn when handling it. The trial proved that the danger from flea beetles is not from those that hatch from underground under the mesh. None were detected. The immigration of adult beetles into the crop from surrounding rape and other brassica crops on surrounding farms or even grassland with wild and volunteer brassicas was by far the most important source of adults causing damage.
For details on all HDC activities, visit www.hdc.org.uk