53rd Meeting of the Working Party on Plant Protection Products

Dublin, 2023-05-31/06-02

 

 

The 53rd Meeting of the Working Party on Plant Protection Products took place in Dublin, on 2023-05-31/06-02. Special thanks are due to Mr McGilloway and his colleagues from the Pesticide Registration Division of Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine of Ireland for the warm hospitability and excellent organization of this meeting as well as arranging the field trip to Teagasc Ashtown research station. Mr Moody, the Head of Pesticide Registration Division gave an overview of Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine . He also explained how the type of agriculture in Ireland impacts the use of plant protection products.

 

The meeting of the Working Party on Plant Protection Products was attended by 22 participants including 17 representatives from EPPO countries, 3 EPPO staff members as well as a member of CropLife Europe and a member of IBMA who attended as observers. This Working Party directs and supervises the technical work of the EPPO Panels concerned with the efficacy evaluation of plant protection products. The major points from the meeting are summarized below.

 

EPPO Standards for approval

The Working Party on Plant Protection Products approved six Specific Standards in the series PP1 Efficacy Evaluation of Plant Protection Products, including two new and four revised Standards. These will be submitted to the EPPO Council in September 2023 for final approval and subsequent publication in the EPPO Bulletin.

 

New Specific Standards

  • Grapevine mealybugs
  • Evaluation of plant defense inducers against Grapevine flavescence dorée phytoplasma

 

Revised Specific Standards

  • PP 1/007 Cydia pomonella
  • PP 1/072 Planococcus citri and Delottococcus aberiae
  • PP 1/122 Phytophthora nicotianae var. parasitica and other Phytophthora species causing canker on citrus
  • PP 1/143 Potato desiccants

Working Party participants

 

Resistance to PPP

The aim of EPPO Database on Resistance Cases  is to share information among the responsible authorities for registration of plant protection products in the EPPO region and between authorities and other stakeholders. The added value of this database, when compared to other available databases, is the inclusion of information about early detection of resistance cases, as well as resistance cases that occur only locally, as long as they are based on data. The Database, is available for EPPO member countries since September 2021 to propose and view resistance cases and for a wider audience to view validated cases.

 

The Working Party was updated on the progress with entering resistance cases to the database and agreed that EPPO countries should continue to provide cases and add information to the database. The Working Party agreed that a reminder to the member countries would be useful to encourage them to enter new cases and nominate contact points (in cases when a contact point has not yet been nominated).

 

 

Minor Uses Extrapolation Database

EPPO extrapolation tables for minor uses were prepared some years ago. Following the wishes of member countries, it was decided to set up a database to make the data in the extrapolation tables more searchable. The Working Party was informed that the work on the prototype of the database is close to finalization and agreed that the EPPO Panels concerned should be able to provide opinion and scientific advice on the database before making the database available for EPPO member countries. The database is expected to be released in 2024.

 

 

Work Programme

The Working Party discussed future activities and priorities which will be submitted, as part of EPPO’s Work Programme 2024, to the EPPO Council in September 2023 for approval. In addition to proposals for new Standards or revision of existing ones, the Working Party discussed plans for an EPPO Workshop focused on Resistance to Plant Protection Products to be organized in future.

 

The next Working Party on Plant Protection Products is tentatively scheduled for 2024-05-28/30.