COST Action 850: Newsletter Issue 2, November 2003

Welcome to the second Issue of EU 850 BioControl Symbiosis.


Letter from the Cost 850 Chairman Ralf-Udo Ehlers

Edited by Professor Roland Perry, Rothamsted Research Harpenden Hertfordshire AL5 2JQ UK, roland.perry@bbsrc.ac.uk

Dear friends and colleagues,

I am glad the next edition of our COST newsletter is out. I want to take the opportunity to introduce myself as your new chairman. Most of you know me from the MC meetings or as chairman of the previous COST 819 "Entomopathogenic Nematodes".

First I would like to thank Ann Burnell for her work as chairman since the start of our Action. The proposal for and start of the new Action 850 was her responsibility. It is always a pleasure to work with Ann and get infected by her enthusiasm for science and European cooperation. I am glad that Ann will continue to play a significant role in our Action and thus I always have a wise advisor in questions concerning our activities.

Our Action suffered a type of paralysis due to the European Commission's idea not to continue to host the COST programme. This is a pity as it has worked so well in the past. However, it looks like we have to live with decisions politicians make. The Commission started negotiations with the European Science Foundation (ESF). A contract between ESF and the European Commission was signed at the end of August! This is a running contract (Specific Support Action FP6) for the first 18 months (01/07/2003 until 01/01/2005). First payments to ESF will be done within 45 days after signing. Our secretary expects that the ESF-COST office will be fully operational by 1st January, 2004.
Although still many things are not clear, one thing is certain: the ESF has to spend the budget for the first 18 months (13.5 million) before January 1st, 2005. Also the ESF has to report to the Commission before the end of next year; to enable the Commission to evaluate the first 18 months, before the Commission decides whether to continue the contract.

We do not know yet:
- the exact budget per action (for this period probably between 60.000 and 75.000 Euros)
- the conditions/criteria for meetings
- the criteria for STSMs (probably not on a contract but to be requested individually)
- the criteria for workshops.

I hope we will continue with the rules we had in the past and I hope to be able to tell you more about it during our next MC meeting at Einsiedeln in Switzerland during January 17 and 18, 2004. This is the same place where we were in January 2002. Originally, I had applied for a meeting after the Symposium organized by Gaugler and Glazer in Eilat, but this was not accepted by the Commission. Therefore, I applied for travel support to go to Switzerland for this MC meeting and have just received approval for the meeting. I greatly appreciate the invitation from Jürg Grunder to Einsiedeln, Switzerland. I hope you will be able to attend. I particularly invite participants interested in WGs 1 and 2 to contribute to the definition of 2004 objectives. We missed many of you the last time we were in Einsiedeln.

COST will cover travel and daily allowance for the MC and 5 experts who will help to organise the mushroom meeting in 2004. I will inform everyone in due course of the approval of their participation. Of course, the meeting is not closed and I invite also those colleagues to participate, whose expenses will not be covered by COST.

The local organiser is Dr. Jürg M. Grunder, Swiss Federale Research Station for Fruit-Growing, Viticulture and Horticulture, Nematology, CH - 8820 Wädenswil, Switzerland. Tel: 0041 (0)1 783 63 36 (switchboard: 111) / Fax: 0041 (0)1 783 64 34, Email: juerg.grunder@faw.admin.ch

Location: SJBZ, Schweizer Jugend- und Bildungszentrum, Lincolnweg 23, CH - 8840 Einsiedeln, Switzerland / Tel: 0041 (0)55 418 88 88 / Fax: 0041 (0)55 418 88 89

Tentative Programme:

Draft Agenda for the 6th Management Committee Meeting of COST 850 "Biocontrol Symbioses"
 Venue: Einsiedeln, Switzerland
Date: January 16, 15:30 to January 18, 12:30, 2004

  1. Opening of the Meeting
  2. Approval of the Draft Agenda
  3. Approval of the Minutes of the 5th Management Committee Meeting, Salzau, Germany
  4. Overview of the Administrative Restructuring of the COST activity
  5. COST 850 Website and publications: The web page needs some more input. Jürg Grunder will be in contact with some of you to define, which material is lacking.
  6. Working Group 3+5: Technology Transfer to Mushroom Growers
    Several investigations by participating members of COST Action 850 have demonstrated the potential of EPN to control sciarid flies in mushroom houses. However, the use of EPN is limited. This is also due to a lack of information about the potential of EPN among mushroom growers. The objective of our activity is to increase the use of EPN against mushroom pests. We want to get growers' organisations, extension people, growers, spawn producers and the marketing sector to a meeting, where we present the potential of EPN for mushroom pest control.
    We need to discuss the place and date of the meeting and form a group to organize the activity and get the national representatives to get in contact with their mushroom people in their countries. For this meeting we want to invite some experts who are not members of the MC of COST 850. The following activities will be planed:
    Programme; decision on invited experts; the target group and sampling of addresses; identify mushroom research organisations in Europe; how to involve EPN producers and distributors; how to involve spawn producers; how to advertise the meeting and get the target group interested; strategies for technology transfer.
    Other activites of the WGs 3 and 5 will also be discussed.
  7. Working Group 1: Proposal for an EPN genome project (see attached proposal by Andras Fodor Link: http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/ppi/news/EPN-genomeproject.doc)
  8. Working Group 4: What makes establishment of EPN successful - which factors support persistence
  9. Reports and future activity for WGs
  10. Short Scientific Missions
  11. Date of next MC Meeting
  12. Any Other Business

This is a tentative programme. I expect your inputs on plans for additional activities. Please let me know before Christmas about your ideas for other workshops and activities.


I would like to inform you about two meetings:

1. Eilat: New Paradigms for Insecticidal Nematodes, International Workshop on Entomopathogenic Nematodes and their Bacterial Symbionts- Eilat, Israel, 18-20 November, 2003. After the very successful workshop in Wooster, Ohio, organised by P. Grewal and M. Klein, here is another one to go to. Further information: http://www.bard-isus.com/workshop/epn3.htm

2. Engelsberg, Switzerland, January 14 - 16, 2004 Workshop on Diabrotica (cornroot worm). CRW is a major pest of maize in the USA. D. virgifera was introduced in Europe in 1992 during the Balkan war and has spread all over the Balkan region and reached France, Italy, Austria and is at the border to Germany. This pest is a target for nematodes. Prior to our meeting in Einsiedeln, there is a Diabrotica meeting in Switzerland (Engelsberg), not far away from Einsiedeln. For those of you interested to attend, please contact www.cabi-bioscience.ch/diabrotica-meeting


Important announcements:

1. Solveig has finished our brochure and it was sent to be printed. Check on the webpage and Link: http://www.rothamsted.bbsrc.ac.uk/ppi/news/COST850brochure.doc

2. Jürg has put in the frame for the COST 850 webpage (http://www.cost850.ch/index.html). You can see that we need much more input (see also the note from Jürg and Bernard below). The sponsors have agreed to support the construction of the web page. Now we need to get it functioning.

3. Portugal has joined our action. The signatures for our action are summarized at http://cost.cordis.lu/src/action_detail.cfm?action=850

4. Publications: The book of the HU meeting on taxonomy of long DJ nematode species is finished and will be going to the printer soon.

5. Prolongation: Our action continues until 2006. We applied for it to be prolonged until 2007. However, the CSO (Committee of Senior Officials) rejected prolonging COST850 for a year due to the paralysis of the last year, but they offered to consider prolongation again later. So we will apply again in 2005.

All the best
Ralf

Ralf-Udo Ehlers
Institute for Phytopathology
Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel
Dept. Biotechnology & Biological Control
Hermann-Rodewald-Str. 9
D-24118 Kiel/Germany

Tel.: +49-431-880-4864
Fax: +49-431-880-1583
E-Mail: ehlers@biotec.uni-kiel.de
Homepage: http://www.uni-kiel.de/phytomed/
DIABOLO Project: http://www.may.ie/academic/biology/diabolo/main.html

Activity

COST 850 activities in Switzerland:

From Stefan Kuske and Jürg Grunder:

In Switzerland, several research activities started within the scope of the COST 850 programme in 2003. A laboratory screening procedure was initiated for testing the activity of Swiss EPN strains against cherry, hazelnut, and chestnut pests. Furthermore, two field experiments are currently in progress. In these experiments we investigate the field efficacy of commercial EPN products against the cherry fruit fly and the chestnut weevil. In 2004, research activities will be continued and additional investigations may be carried out in hazelnut orchards in South-western France.

Web-Page

From Jürg Grunder and Bernard Blum:

Web Page: http://www.cost850.ch

The COST850 web page will be started very soon. At present the frame of the web page has been launched, but we still have to fill it. Soon you will be informed about the necessary documents to be sent to us. We are certain that we will have a successful and interesting web page for science, industry, end users and members of the extension services.

Thesis

Congratulations! to Shulong Chen for obtaining a PhD for his thesis entitled Infectivity and persistence of entomopathogenic nematodes used to control the cabbage root fly, Delia radicum. His Promoter was Prof. Maurice Moens who is Head of Department of Crop Protection at the Agricultural Research Centre, Merelbeke, Belgium.

Obituary

Andrzej Bednarek
by Marek Tomalak

We all have been recently shocked by the news that Andrzej Bednarek, Professor at the Department of Animal Science, Warsaw Agricultural University died on June 22nd 2003, after a long and courageous battle against cancer.
For all COST 819 and COST 850 members Andrzej was known as a friendly and modest person, always willing to listen and discuss new ideas on entomopathogenic nematodes, biological and integrated pest control, and ecological approach to agricultural environment.
In 1972 Andrzej Bednarek graduated from the Department of Biology and Earth Science at the A. Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland, where he had been trained primarily as an entomologist. With time his interests spread from insects to entomopathogenic nematodes and this merger resulted in his Ph.D. thesis on host-parasite relationships between insects and Steinernema carpocapsae, completed in 1982 at the Institute of Ecology in Dziekanow Lesny near Warsaw. Entomopathogenic nematodes remained Andrzej's main interest for the rest of his life. He worked on taxonomy and natural occurrence of steinernematids and heterorhabditids in forest and agricultural soils, on ecological aspects of their development in the host, and practical use in biological and integrated control of pest insects. He published his results in many journals and oral presentations at national and international conferences, including COST and IOBC meetings.
Less known to our community of entomopathogenic nematologists was Andrzej's dedication to development of integrated and ecological farming in Poland. In these fields he animated the ecological movement and served on a number of advisory committees to growers' organisations and to the Polish government. He also founded and spiritually led the Roleko company which specialises in biological and integrated control of pests in glasshouse crops.
Andrzej was strongly involved in popularisation of environmentally safe methods of pest management by organisation of seminars and training courses for scientists and growers. One of his latest goals was the COST 850 WG 3 meeting on control of mushroom pests with entomopathogenic nematodes to be held in Rogow, Poland. Unfortunately, his illness and much too early death did not allow him to complete this task.... He will be greatly missed by those of us who had the privilege of knowing him closer.

Future Newsletters:

It is planned to incorporate the newsletter into the Website as a continuously updatable feature, to be called the Notice Board. Please continue to send information to me, at the address below, for inclusion.