Improving pest management for the nursery industry- June workshops

The Improving Pest Management for the Nursery Industry project will be wrapping up in 2021. The project will provide the production nursery industry the first cost benefit analysis of IPM systems in seven different production nursery systems.

Greenlife industry Australia through a third party (Acadian Analysis) has collected data from participant production nurseries over the past 24 months, to the compare cost to businesses for plant protection from pests and diseases with and without a structured Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system in place.

NIASA accredited participants have been recording business costs associated with the management of pests and diseases under their normal day to day operations over the past 24 months. In the last 12 months of that period, these production nurseries have employed additional procedures to integrate the principles of IPM. These were the four BioSecure HACCP procedures for Crop Monitoring, Import inspections, Site inspections and Despatch inspections which were combined with professional crop monitoring services from Biological Services. All data collected will shortly be analysed for reporting back to industry.

The seven production nurseries from around the country who have volunteered to be a part of the project can now look forward to receiving individualised economic reports on their pest management costs by the end of May 2021. While the production nursery industry, can look forward to the release of the results of the economic assessment by the end of October 2021.

Along with a pest trending analysis, IPM strategies have been developed for industry for the top 5 pests as indicated by the Strategic Agrichemical Review Process (SARP). These are Aphids, Western Flower Thrips, Mites, Fungus Gnats and Scale. Project conclusions and recommendations, pest trending analysis and the IPM strategies will be released earlier to industry at field days in June 2021.Otherwise results and information will be released in the project report in late October 2021.

Field day presentations will include segments on

• Presentation and discussion of the principles of IPM with a strong focus on crop monitoring presented by Biological Services.
• Practical exercise and demonstration of how to apply IPM theories presented by Biological Services.
• Presentation of the economic assessment of IPM adoption in production nurseries presented by GIA.
• Commentary from the production nursery on their experiences, challenges, and the benefits of adopting IPM in the business.

Field days will be held the week beginning 21^st of June 2021. These will be held at or near participating nursery sites in QLD, NSW, VIC, WA and SA. Please see the table below for dates and locations for your area.
Registration for these events is essential.

For more information on the project contact John McDonald on john.mcdonald@greenlifeindustry.com.au or contact a plant protection officer in your state:

Steve Blythe in WA: steve.blyth@greenlifeindustry.com.au
Kimberley Thomas in VIC & SA: kimberley.thomas@greenlifeindustry.com.au
Emma De Landre in NSW: emma.delandre@greenlifeindustry.com.au

The project has been funded by Hort Innovation using the nursery industry research and development levy and funds from the Australian Government.