Alnarp, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences SLU and the Nordic cooperation bodies SNS and NKJ hosted the Nordic-Baltic forum on plant pests 2024. Every year, there is an opportunity to exchange the latest research and to create collaborations between the countries.
The participants in the meeting at Alnarp came from eight Nordic and Baltic countries, and they are part of an informal forum that has existed for a long time; Nordic-Baltic Phytosanitary Forum. The forum focuses on plant protection issues and plant pests. The purpose is to prevent the spread of pests and protect plantations, forests, trees and other plant environments from them.
Mainly, the participants work for the various national plant protection authorities responsible for managing regulated plant pests, and clearly benefit from working together in a Nordic-Baltic environment.
– As neighbors, the eight Nordic and Baltic countries share a relatively similar climate and similar flora, crops and forests. Everyone benefits from intensive and advanced plant and forest production. Many also have a long shared political and cultural history, and an interest in preventing the introduction and spreading of new plant pests that can cause major damage. We are also stronger together to take on challenges and try to find solutions, says Kristof Capieau, chief plant health officer at the Swedish Board of Agriculture.
In addition to creating contact and discussions, the participants in the meeting received presentations by Federation of Leisure Gardeners (FOR) concerning the collaboration with the Swedish Board for Agriculture regarding citizen research regarding quarantine pests, and SLU Risk Assessment of Plant Pests about their new reports regarding risks with the Colorado potato beetle. Researchers from the SLU research group in forest pathology at the Department of Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre talked about their latest projects and methods, and Krister Tham, Founder and CTO at Katam, talked about his work.
The park on the SLU Alnarp campus is well worth a visit, and the group was guided around there.
Another purpose of the meeting was to signal the importance of cooperation between authorities, universities and other relevant actors in society. Through collaboration, it is possible to achieve an increased understanding of each other’s needs and the goals. Amongst other things, there is a need to highlight the importance of obtaining new knowledge and new methods for managing plant pests, which authorities can use to take the right measures and make effective and well-motivated decisions regarding plant pests.
– There are a number of different quarantine pests that can threaten our plants. Examples that were touched upon during our meeting in Sweden are the root gall nematodes Meloidogyne chitwoodi and M. fallax which, among other things, attack potatoes. Another was the emerald ash borer Agrilus planipennis, which attacks ash and which, due to the geopolitical situation, risks a faster spread from the east to the EU’s external border, says Kristof Capieau.
– Cooperation alone cannot guarantee that quarantine pests won’t become a reality in Sweden. However, it can clearly contribute to better conditions to prevent an introduction to our countries.
Jonas Rönnberg, director of the SLU Forest Damage Centre, also sees great benefit from a collaboration like the forum.
– Forest pests see no national borders. By collaboration, we can exchange experiences and get quick information about new pests that are about to spread.
