| Foresty Commission programme manager: | Steve Gregory |
| Research contact and location: | Hugh Evans Tree Health Division Forest Research |
This programme provides support to the statutory functions of the Forestry Commission with regard to non-indigenous insect pests. At present this work is funded mainly by the Forestry Commission and focuses on pest risk analysis, monitoring and potential control measures for the most immediately threatening pests. Direct input to the EU Standing Committee on Plant Health and to the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation (EPPO) is also provided. Plant health regulation of timber pests such as Dendroctonus micans, Ips species and Asian gypsy moth impinges, or has the potential to impinge, on all growers and wood processors. A project co-funded by the EU is assessing alternatives to methyl bromide (an ozone depleting fumigant) as a quarantine treatment is close to completion. It has refined heat treatment of isolated bark through natural composting processes and, with BHR Group at Cranfield University, has developed a temperature diffusion model to predict the rate of heat penetration to wood in compliance with the new international regulation requiring all packaging wood to be heat-treated. A new EU co-funded programme of research on Plant Health Risk and Management Evaluation (PHRAME), using pinewood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus) as a model system commenced in January 2003.
The principal output of the programme is advice to the Forestry Commission, UK government, devolved administrations, and other countries on forest pests of quarantine significance. The programme has a high scientific content and will continue to generate scientific papers. It also accommodates internationally recognised UK expertise in pest risk analysis. Work in the programme is reviewed annually.
progress reports
No reports available at this time
commissioned reports
No reports available at this time
