Invasive alien plants in plant health: a review of the past ten years

The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) provides the background for National Plant Protection Organisations (NPPOs) to regulate and control invasive alien species that are harmful to plants. This subject was specifically discussed for the first time 10 years ago at IPPC level, and further explored by an IPPC open‐ended working group. The resulting concept was considered at EU level, and the EU Council supported the suitability of the plant health framework for these species, requesting the EU Commission to further analyse the needs for regulatory work in the EU plant health regime. Subsequently the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) started a new working programme. The international conference ‘Invasive alien species and the IPPC’ set a signal for IPPC contracting parties to encourage their NPPOs to enforce actions on invasive alien species. IPPC standards on pest risk analysis (PRA) were adapted so as to include invasive alien species harmful to plants, and a memorandum of cooperation was adopted between the Secretariats of the IPPC and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). At present, the EU Commission, DG Environment is developing a European strategy on invasive alien species. The EU Plant Health Regulatory System is currently subjected to a major evaluation process in which a clearer inclusion of invasive alien species into the system is one of the strategic discussions.     

Q‐collect: results of a European Union project to improve the status of reference collections important for plant health

The ability of National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) and their affiliated laboratories to quickly and reliably detect and identify organisms is critical for the effective performance of phytosanitary measures. Plant pest diagnostics is also essential to support the phytosanitary certification of consignments of plants and plant products exported from the EU. Access to reference material has been identified as a limitation on the ability of laboratories to develop and validate diagnostic tests and ensure the reliability of diagnostics. The EU FP7 Q‐collect project worked to establish the state of the art of current phytosanitary collections, to identify gaps and propose minimum quality standards, to facilitate access to specimens and to design and build networks of reference collections. The main results of the project are presented in this paper.     

EPPO Council Colloquium on five years of the EU Single Market Loos-en-Gohelle (FR), 1997–09–18

In 1992, EPPO organized jointly with the EU Commission, in Brussels, a Colloquium on the phytosanitary impact of the Single Market (OEPP/EPPO, 1993). This unique undertaking in the harmonization of the phytosanitary regulations of 12 (now 15) countries has now been in place for 5 years, and a further Colloquium was held to review progress. Speakers from the EU Commission, from the NPPOs of Member States, and from the NPPOs of other EPPO countries contributed their views on two main questions: (1) practical implementation of the main new elements of the phytosanitary regime (registration of growers, plant passports, protected zones, inspection at destination); (2) consequences for other EPPO countries and in particular prospects for extending the regime to them through equivalence agreements. The Colloquium concluded that the Single Market has been a success and that the problems which were anticipated by some parties have not materialized. In particular, there has been no increase in new pest outbreaks by comparison with the preceding period, and the costs of applying the new regime have not been excessive. A few practical difficulties persist in some areas of work and will now have to be resolved.     

PestLens: an early‐warning system supporting U.S. safeguarding against exotic plant pests

The effectiveness of safeguarding and quarantine actions aimed at preventing the introduction and minimizing the impact of exotic plant pests relies on current information about those pests. National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) face the following challenges: staying up to date on continuously emerging new pest information, filtering and evaluating this information, disseminating it effectively and efficiently, applying it toward decision making, and coordinating and tracking the resulting decisions and safeguarding actions. PestLens, the web‐based early‐warning system of the NPPO of the United States, is designed to address all of these challenges. This paper describes the PestLens system and discusses lessons learned during system development and operation.     

EPPO Council Colloquium on 'Plant health and the environment', Dublin, 2000-09-21

The National Plant Protection Organizations of EPPO countries have a basic responsibility to prevent the introduction and spread of pests of plants and plant products. This has been for many years defined by the IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) and now by its new revised text. The Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the World Trade Organization has in the past 10 years aimed to prevent the use of phytosanitary measures as unjustified barriers to trade. In the past 2 years, new constraints have appeared, particularly on account of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). International co-operation is now developing on biosafety (restricting the movement of potentially dangerous organisms, whether GMOs, alien species or invasive species) and on the protection of the environment and biodiversity as such. The new obligations of countries under the CBD, and the measures which they can take to implement them, overlap to a significant extent with their obligations under the IPPC. The responsibilities and tasks of NPPOs (under Ministries of Agriculture) can at a technical level be extended to cover the concerns of the CBD, but in so doing may conflict with those of the equivalent authorities under the Ministries of the Environment. The aim of the EPPO Council Colloquium in Dublin was to examine these areas of potential overlap and conflict and consider the consequences for the international organizations concerned with plant health (like EPPO) and for the NPPOs.     

A call for stakeholders to boost integrated pest management in Europe: a vision based on the three-year European research area network project

Recent years have seen an increasing effort towards the development and adoption of sustainable crop protection strategies, especially in the EU. Several policy frameworks have been put in place including the EU framework Directive (128/EC/2009) on the sustainable use of pesticides. Consequently, all EU Member States developed National Action Plans to ensure the implementation of the general principles of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) by all professional pesticide users starting from January 1, 2014. On the other hand, there are also difficulties related to the adoption of IPM in Europe and worldwide which seek for a better understanding of factors hindering IPM uptake. This paper presents the potential role that each actor of the food chain may have – called here stakeholders – to ensure a higher level IPM adoption in Europe. The information reported here is a summary based on several discussions held within a three-year European Research Area Network project on Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (ERA-Net C-IPM; http://c-ipm.org/).     

Technical review of the EPPO Workshop on Application Technology in Plant Protection1

The presentations. discussions and exhibition of equipment of the EPPO Workshop on Application Technology in Plant Protection were orientated towards field sprayers. air-assisted sprayers. pedestrian equipment, and aerial applications. An evaluation of this equipment is given here on the basis of six criteria: general remarks. quality of application. contamination of the environment/operator exposure, EPPO/EU/national difkrences, innovations, need for future action. There are some deficiencies in the generally accepted rules for the application of plant protection products. Correcting these could be a task for technical experts from EPPO countries in future.     

Implementation of an ISO 17025 flexible scope in the phytosanitary field at the National Reference Centre in the Netherlands

Quality systems in plant health laboratories are common these days. Most of these laboratories are accredited under a fixed scope, but because of the high diversity of organism–matrix combinations tested yearly in phytosanitary laboratories, the National Reference Centre (NRC) of the National Plant Protection Organization in the Netherlands chose to implement a phytosanitary focused flexible scope, the Phytoflex scope. This allows for the inclusion of additional activities in its scope of accreditation, without prior evaluation by the accreditation body. One of the reasons to implement a flexible scope was the initiation of the Official Control Regulation by the European Union, which states that official laboratories in plant health should be accredited according to ISO/IEC 17025 for all methods used when working as an official laboratory. The quality management system of the NRC is the foundation of the Phytoflex scope. The results of diagnoses given are based on the pillars Validation, Expertise and Assurance. Before the implementation of the Phytoflex scope in 2014, the scope only covered six tests for a combination of organism and matrix. As a result of the introduction of the Phytoflex scope, the number of organisms that are covered under ISO 17025 accreditation at the NRC has increased from six to almost 90 in November 2019. Management of the Phytoflex scope demands high awareness of quality systems for personnel and management, and puts more responsibility on the laboratory. If the different aspects of management of the scope are not accurately organized, the flexible scope may be revoked by the accreditation body. The Phytoflex scope makes it possible to act more quickly to add tests for new and emerging risks to the accreditation. However, this is not possible for all tests and further discussions are required to fulfil the accreditation requirement from the Official Control Regulation.     

Legislation for plant protection in Germany and in the European Union1

The first regulations on plant protection in Germany date from the last century and the first basic rules from 1937. New legislation was published in 1968. The key basis for modern plant protection is the Plant Protection Act of 1986. The legal basis, organization and scope of legislation i n the tield of plant protection in Germany are dcscrihed. The specific role of the rederal German states (Linder) is pointed out. The competent authority for granting authorization o f plant protection products in Germany is the Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry in Braunschweig. The maximum period of authorization is 10 years. The legal basis for placing plant protection products on the market within the Member States of the European Union is summarized. together with the main elements of the regulations regarding authorization of plant protection products. There is a need for international cooperation to overcome foreseeable problem and workload regarding risk reduction in plant protection.     

Legislative measures to prevent the introduction and spread of Ralstonia solanacearum in the European Union1

Since the outbreaks of potato brown rot (caused by Ralstonia solanacearum) in EU Member States in the mid 1990s, EU measures against this pest have been strengthened. Factors in the spread of R. solanacearum are reviewed: planting material, Solanaceous weeds, water, soil, waste, machinery and equipment. The Control Directive of 1998 aims to prevent spread and ensure eradication. It provides for the establishment of a demarcated zone whenever the pest is found, for measures to prevent spread from this zone and for measures to eliminate the pest within the zone.     

Situation of Ralstonia solanacearum in the EPPO region in 1997

In the early 1990s, Ralstonia solanacearum , an EPPO A2 quarantine pest which previously occurred only sporadically in some of the southern Member Countries, caused a number of outbreaks of potato brown rot over a wider area in the EPPO region. The National Plant Protection Organizations of the EPPO Member Countries concerned have taken action to eradicate the pest, and in particular the European Union has taken joint action through a Control Directive. Eradication has been successful in many cases, but is complicated by the fact that R. solanacearum can persist on wild Solanum dulcamara and be dispersed by water. EPPO has collected information from its Member Countries through the period of the outbreaks and eradication, and presents in this article an overall view and a detailed country-by-country situation.     

Plant protection means used in organic farming throughout the European Union

Following the obligatory implementation of integrated pest management in the European Union (EU), the plant protection means suitable for application in organic agriculture attracted the attention of quite a wide group of potential users. In spite of the common rules of organic production, as well as the uniform principles of placing plant protection products on the market, the availability of products that can be legally used in organic crop protection differs significantly among the Member States. There is a uniform list of 10 basic substances that can be used in the protection of organic crops throughout the entire EU. Twelve Member States have official registers of plant protection products for use in organic agriculture, and the total number of qualified products per country varies from 11 in Lithuania to 576 in Italy. Some products that improve plant vigour or resistance and may be of use in protection of organic crops are placed on the market as biostimulants. They fall under the law that governs fertilisers and the systems of their registration vary widely among the Member States. In addition, there exist a number of products that have been legally introduced onto the markets of some Member States without registration as a consequence of a loophole in the law. The use of unregistered products in organic agriculture raises some doubts, but currently it seems that there is no legal basis on which to explicitly prohibit the practice. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry     

QBOL: a new EU project focusing on DNA barcoding of Quarantine organisms

In 2009 a new three year EU funded project (QBOL) started on DNA barcoding of important plant pests. An international consortium of 20 partners (universities, research institutes, and phytosanitary organizations) from around the world, coordinated by Plant Research International (Wageningen, the Netherlands), will collect DNA barcodes from many plant pathogenic quarantine organisms, store these sequences in a database accessible over the internet, develop a DNA bank and train end-users. All these activities should help National Plant Protection Services in the correct identification and detection of plant pathogenic quarantine organisms.     

Exotic Pest Information Collection and Analysis (EPICA) – gathering information on exotic pests from the World Wide Web*

This paper describes the Exotic Pest Information Collection and Analysis (EPICA) project, a cooperative effort of the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Center for Plant Health Science and Technology (CPHST) and the National Science Foundation's Center for Integrated Pest Management (CIPM). The EPICA team identifies, archives, evaluates, and communicates relevant information about exotic plant pests from around the world that potentially threaten US agriculture and the environment. The goal of the EPICA project is to provide key groups within USDA's Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) with regular updates of vital pest information to enable a proactive safeguarding approach.     

Potato virus Y (PVY) in Seed Potato Certification

Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection - In the EU and many other countries worldwide, seed potatoes require certification to be marketed. In most of the European national and international seed...     

A quantitative model for trade pathway analysis of plant pest entry and transfer to a host in European Union territory

A quantitative pathway model, QPAFood, has been designed to support risk assessment for plant pest entry into European Union (EU) territory on a range of edible plant commodities via trade flows. The model calculates the distribution of an imported infested/infected commodity along a pathway into and within the EU from source countries, based on Eurostat data and other data/information. The model determines the implications of global trade pathways for the potential arrival of the infested commodity in the EU28 Member States. Within each Member State, the calculation proceeds by distributing the commodity according to uses, notably retail or processing, to the vulnerable area of commercial host crops determined in each NUTS2 region and then quantifies the consequent potential for pest–host contact which could lead to pest transfer. Annual and monthly estimates of contact risk are tabulated and visualized for Member States and NUTS2 regions. The model was developed originally for the European Food Safety Authority using four case studies of specific pest–commodity combinations. These pests had relatively limited host ranges and the model has now been extended in the context of the EC FP7 DROPSA project for the multiple commodity pathways associated with the highly polyphagous fruit pest Drosophila suzukii.     

Impact of arbuscular mycorrhiza on the St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum) wilt disease induced by Colletotrichum cf. gloeosporioides

Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection - The importance of herbal plants is evident in the prevalent use as flavoring ingredients in food. However, meeting the growing demand for organic grown...     

A methodology for preparing a list of recommended regulated non‐quarantine pests (RNQPs)

The concept of ‘regulated non‐quarantine pest’ (RNQP) was introduced in the revised text of the FAO International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) approved in 1997. Measures against quarantine pests (exclusion, eradication, containment) aim to prevent unacceptable economic, environmental and social impacts resulting from the introduction and/or spread of these pests. On the contrary, the concept of RNQPs is intended to prevent an unacceptable economic impact on the intended use of plants for planting by pests that are already present in the area. RNQPs have been introduced in the new EU plant health regulation, in line with available international standards. This regulation entered into force in December 2016 and will be implemented in the following 3 years. In this context, EPPO agreed to undertake a 2‐year project on RNQPs: the EU Quality Pest Project. The objective of this project was to develop a methodology and then to apply this methodology to a list of about 1400 pest–host combinations to identify which should be recommended as RNQPs. This methodology is presented in this paper, as well as the main issues discussed during its development.     

EPPO Council Colloquium on 'Mutual recognition - theory and practice', Clermont-Ferrand (FR) 1999–09-16

The purpose of the 1999 EPPO Council Colloquium was to analyse what, in the context of registration of plant protection products, is 'mutual recognition' as proposed in EU Directive 91/414 and to understand how it is working in practice. Because few active substances are yet included in Annex I of this Directive, and because the criteria for comparability of agricultural practices, plant health and environmental conditions have yet to be worked out in practice, EU Member States do not currently find themselves obliged under the Directive to recognize authorizations given in other countries. However, Member States are working out voluntary systems of recognition for their mutual benefit. Thus, countries such as Germany and Austria, which are perceived as comparable and face no linguistic difficulties in exchanging data, are developing a voluntary system, and a general flow-chart is proposed that could be more generally used. From The Netherlands comes a proposal to use voluntary recognition to solve the problem of minor-use authorizations. EPPO's role in developing guidelines for many aspects of registration is stressed, with new possibilities in the area of assessment of comparability. Non-EU countries have more flexible possibilities for mutual recognition, based on their knowledge of other countries' systems, how they follow EPPO standards and to what extent their systems are modelled on the EU Directive.