Fruit Focus, East Malling Kent, 24th July 2013

East Malling Research, Kent, on 24 July and hot sunny weather shone on the 1200 visitors that attended Fruit Focus 2013 and Sentomol were again among the 126 exhibitors (a record).  The event provides an great opportunity to keep abreast of the latest developments on show and has become the UK’s leading showcase for the fruit sector. Although this year was the latest ever start to the season, soft fruit continues to be a crop increasing in yield and value.  Strawberries this year are giving above average yields, up to 40t/ha while raspberry sales are hitting around 400t per week. 

Sentomol was at Stand 66 and our stand saw a continuous flow of visitors over the day. Exhibiting our full range of soft fruit traps for raspberry beetle, raspberry midge, Lygus and Lygocorus and strawberru blossom weevil discussions also covered what was new for Drosophila suzukii.

A great second year and we look forward to returning in 2014.

International Pest Control Magazine - July / August

Summer is well and truly upon us in the Northern hemisphere and the rains and winds of 2012 have been replaced by the heat and sun of 2013.    Pest management is all about coping with changing situations that confront us and the weather certainly makes forward planning a challenge.

One of the challenges of Editor of International Pest Control magazine is to decide what articles to include each month.  We are always open to receive press releases, scientific articles and news stories from around the world and we aim to reflect our global readership and breadth of markets in the material we include in each issue.  In addition to our normal news stories, we have this month added a ‘News in Brief’ section where we summarise some additional stories from around the world.
This month we examine plant defences and how plants communicate.  Covering vector management, we consider progress in combating malaria and a novel tool for dengue vector monitoring.  Under urban pests, we provide discussions on bed bug monitors and termite baits, while also casting our eye over the challenges facing archivists with a review of June’s  ‘IPM in museums’ meeting.  We spotlight two minor pests, where studies on control could have broader applications.  Essential oils and plant extracts are often discussed as part of the growing biopesticide markets and we look specifically at how these agents are used against the Red Palm Mite in Trinidad and, with invasive weeds in mind, we look at how in the UK, local river groups are coping with Himalayan Balsam.  Having covered insects and weeds, we also look at fungal pests with a review of how rusts present a food security risk.  And finally, we consider a little known pest that is a problem in tree crops, tropical epiphytes and collateral control.
Our company profile this month is PelGar International.  If you would like your company to feature in these pages and you have a successful story to tell, then get in touch.
I hope you enjoy your summer reading.

Monmouthshire Beacon 17th July, Page 35

Victoria Hallifax, Reporter at the Monmouthshire Beacon attended the SWHP Open Day and having spotted the the two H-Traps that were working hard at keeping horsefly numbers down, contacted us to run an article.

Horsefly Trap working well at SWHP

We were busy over the weekend catching horseflies.  Our neighbours The Society for the Welfare of Horse and Ponies (www.swhp.co.uk) are holding an open day on Sunday 7th July and we've installed 2 traps on site in an effort to get the local horsefly population down so the current equine residents, staff and visitors can enjoy the day more.  I had just set up one extra trap on Saturday and left the trap to fetch some soapy water the fill the catch chamber and was amazed to see the pot already alive with caught flies when I retruned 10 minutes later.  The original trap had been emptied that morning and by lunch time there was a considerable collection.  Most were our common 'Notch-horned Cleg - Haematopota pluvialis  but there were a few large Tabanus species also although I wasn't able to identify which.

See our Youtube video below to see the catch for yourself.