A collaborative AHDB-led research project hopes to offer more insight into cabbage stem flea beetle (CSFB) management in winter oilseed rape (OSR)
CSFB Research+ will evaluate the field performance of novel control products, improve guidance on cultural control measures, fine-tune understanding of CSFB development, generate data on natural enemies and prime innovation in CSFB management.
Running for nearly five years, the work builds on a long-term series of AHDB- and Defra-funded projects that has dramatically improved understanding of the pest’s life cycle, crop risk factors and effective cultural control strategies.
The AHDB suggests the project will take CSFB management to the “next level” and crop protection scientist Sacha White believes it will help restore confidence in the crop. “Faced with a lack of chemistry and insecticide resistance challenges, confidence and commitment to OSR have waned, with the UK shifting from a net exporter to a net importer in recent years.
“This new research partnership project brings together passionate and knowledgeable people from across the industry – spanning farmer cooperatives, input specialists, grain merchants, food producers and applied researchers such as ADAS, NIAB and Rothamsted – to co-design activity that puts CSFB control firmly back into the hands of farmers.”
The partnership will investigate:
- The field performance of novel CSFB control products, such as novel insecticides/seed treatments, botanical biopesticides, entomopathogenic nematodes and synergists
- Extend the availability of cultural control methods, including the use of OSR stubble cultivation to disrupt soil-dwelling CSFB pupae and brassicas in cover crops to lure beetles away from OSR cash crops
- Improve understanding of CSFB traits to target cultural, biological and chemical control, including studying how environmental conditions influence CSFB development and migration
- Study the two main parasitoids of CSFB: Microctonus brassicae and Tersilochus microgaster (with a focus on the former), including how to encourage them
The project represents the AHDB’s largest single investment in CSFB research, with a total project value nudging £750,000. A third of this investment is from cash and in-kind contributions from an extensive network of project partners.
For more project information, visit ahdb.org.uk/csfb-research
