PurPest coordinator, Andrea Ficke, kicked-off the second annual project meeting in Padua, Italy, by lighting a candle.

The event took place in a hybrid format, and was an opportunity for all members to come together and discuss the progress that was made in the different work packages, and share the outputs that were produced.

Participants also had the chance to visit the beautiful Orto...

Our PurPest partner Ted Turlings received the 2023 Swiss Science Prize Marcel Benoist, for his contributions to the fields of Chemical Ecology and Plant-Insect interactions, and his work on the biological control of plant pests through volatile compounds.

Read the full story here.

On the 23^rd of November 2023, PurPest workpackage leaders gathered virtually to discuss ongoing project activities at the Executive Board Meeting.

This exchange provided a platform for an in-depth review of the progress made, allowing to address any challenges encountered, and pave the way for coordinated actions in upcoming tasks of the project.

Ted Turlings was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, that took place between 5-8 November 2023 in Washington, USA, in a well-attended session entitled Bodyguards for Plants: Integrating Indirect Defense into Plant Breeding and Pest Management. The efforts to develop ways to use odor sensors that can detect the presence of crop pests...

Industry partners, plant protection officers and interest groups discussed the use of a VOC based Sensor prototype platform (SPP) to detect and stop quarantine pests in the first stakeholder meetings for the EU project PurPest on October 25^th, 2023. The first SPP model was presented in 3-D images by Damien Bazin, Chromatotec.

Luís Bonifácio gave an oral presentation as a Keynote speaker on “The Pine Wilt Disease in Europe (Portugal and Spain): Special emphasis on the control measures development and future research prospects” at IUFRO International Symposium on Pine Wilt Disease “PWD2023” in Nanjing, China (25-28 October 2023).

National Technology Day, organized by the Division of Food and Society at the Apelsvoll farm, close to Gjøvik, Norway, under the topic precision plant protection.

Andrea Ficke presented the the PurPest concept  there and talked about the use of VOCs in plant protection and pest detection.