1992–1994
The monitoring of WCR in Serbia was carried out using visual inspection techniques of fields within and around the WCR-infested area in 1993 and 1994. The yearly spread of the adult population was estimated to be 50–70 km covering about 10,000 km2 in 1993 and 20,000 km2 in 1994 (Sivcev et al., 1994).
1995
The International Working Group on Ostrinia and Other Maize Pests (IWGO) of the International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC) organized the first WCR international workshop in Europe in cooperation with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and European Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) in March of 1995 (Berger, 1996). The result of this meeting was the establishment of the IWGO Diabrotica Subgroup, which called for a collaborative effort among all countries and organizations to address the issues associated with the presence of this pest in Europe, including monitoring. To initiate this activity, C.R. Edwards (Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA) and H.K. Berger (Institute for Phytomedicine, Federal Office and Research Centre for Agriculture, Vienna, Austria) provided cucurbitacin-based vial traps to interested countries for monitoring WCR in 1995. Parallel to the use of cucurbitacin traps, visual inspection of maize plants, Multigard® yellow sticky traps (Scentry, Billings, Montana, USA) and sex pheromone traps (Tóth et al., 1996) were also employed.
By the end of 1995, the spread of the WCR population in the FRY reached the borders of Hungary and Croatia. This spread to the north and west occurred very quickly in 1995. As a result, the first detections of WCR adults in Croatia (Igrc-Barc˘ic´ and Maceljsky, 1996) and inHungary (Princzinger, 1996) occurred in 1995. Although WCR adults were not trapped in Romania in 1995, it is assumed that the WCR population
30 J. Kiss et al.
1As of 4 February 2003 the FRY has become Serbia and Montenegro. In this chapter, however, Serbia will be used to indicate the Serbian portion of the union and Montenegro the other.
reached the Serbian/Romanian borders by 1995. WCR monitoring was also conducted in 1995 in Bulgaria, but no WCR adults were captured.
1996
In 1996, WCR monitoring using the same techniques as described for 1995 continued. WCR adults were captured inRomania(Vonica, 1996) in 1996. However, although monitoring was under way in Bulgaria, Poland, Slovenia and Ukraine, no detections of WCR adults were made in these countries in 1996.
1997
An FAO Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) activity, which had as a part of its mission the establishment of a permanent monitoring network for WCR, was initiated in 1997 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The establishment of this network allowed for the follow- ing:
● Determinations as to the occurrence and spread of WCR into uninfested regions.
● Ability to gauge WCR population fluctuations within and between years in the permanent monitoring sites.
Hungarian pheromone traps (Csalomon PAL, for capture of WCR males) were used for monitoring the population spread of WCR in the TCP activity. This type of trap is attractive enough to allow for early detection of WCR males, even at low WCR population levels. In order to catch WCR females, non-baited Multigard®yellow sticky traps were used.
Csalomon PAL pheromone traps were placed at the previous year’s WCR spread line and beyond, while taking into account the natural barriers or pathways that might increase or decrease WCR spread. Multigard® traps were placed in maize fields within the infested area.
As a part of the FAO TCP monitoring activity, the first detection of WCR inBosnia-Herzegovina(Festic´ et al., 1998) was recorded. As of the end of the 1997 growing season, a total of approximately 100,000 km2 were infested in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary and Romania, with economic populations present only in Serbia (Edwards et al., 1998). Bulgaria, Slovenia and Ukraine reported that no WCR trap- pings occurred in their countries.
1998
The monitoring activity under the FAO TCP project continued in 1998.
The spread of WCR was monitored as in 1997 through the use of
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Csalomon PAL and Multigard® traps. During the season, the first detec- tion of WCR was reported from Bulgaria (Ivanova, 2002), Montenegro (Sivcev and Hrncic, 1998) and Italy(Furlan et al., 1998). The Italian cap- tures were the first case of the so-called ‘jumping spread’ of WCR, the occurrence of adults far from the actual spread line. Also, Italy was the first member state of the European Union to be infested by WCR.
Although the monitoring area increased to several new countries in 1998, there were no WCR adults detected in Austria, Germany, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Ukraine (Edwards et al., 1999).
1999
In early 1999, the FAO TCP project terminated and the regional activity for WCR monitoring was continued under the WCR Network established in 1999 by the Plant Protection Department, Szent Istvan University, Hungary. The WCR spread continued in the infested countries and approached the borders of Austria, Slovak Republic and Slovenia. In Italy, an eradication programme was established in the infested area near Venice (Furlan et al., 2002). No WCR adults were detected in 1999 in Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Slovak Republic and Ukraine, although monitoring was taking place.
2000
Multigard® traps were replaced in the monitoring network in 2000 by another yellow sticky trap, the Pherocon®AM trap (TRE´CE´ Incorporated, PO Box 6278, Salinas, California, USA). This switch was made due to the fact that more data were available from the USA on what the actual numbers caught on the Pherocon® AM traps meant in regard to the pos- sibility of the presence of WCR economic populations. In 2000, first detections of WCR were observed in the Slovak Republic(Sivicek, 2000) and Switzerland(Bürki, 2000), and a new infestation in Italy in the Milan region far from the 1998 detection near Venice was noted. No WCR adults were detected in 2000 in Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Slovenia and Ukraine. In addition to Serbia, economic larval damage to maize roots was first observed in Croatia, Hungary and Romania in 2000.
2001
Beginning in 2001, FAO provided support for the WCR Network activity, including monitoring, in the region through a letter of agreement with the Plant Protection Department, Szent Istvan University, Hungary (Kiss and Edwards, 2002; Kiss, 2003). This support enabled the regional coopera-
32 J. Kiss et al.
tive effort to continue. The spread of WCR in Europe continued, with the first detection of WCR in the Ukraine in the border triangle of Hungary/Ukraine/Romania (Movchan et al., 2001; Omelyuta and Filatova, 2001; Sadlyak et al., 2001).
As evidence of the presence of economic populations in 2001, WCR larval damage in the form of visible plant lodging was noted in parts of Serbia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania. The largest area of larval damage was observed in Hungary, where root damage ratings in southern coun- ties reached the economic level of 3 (Hills and Peters 1–6 root damage rating scale) on 3058 ha.
2002
In 2002, the greatest spread occurred toward the north and east in areas where the plains of Hungary, Slovak Republic and Romania or river valleys of the Mures River in Romania favoured beetle spread. In Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the spread of WCR was moderate, approximately 20–30 km.
WCR reached Austria in 2002 (Cate, 2002). The jumping spread of WCR resulted in the first detection of WCR in the Czech Republic (Rasovsky and Vahala, 2002) and France, near Paris (Reynaud, 2002). The jumping spread ability of WCR poses the risk of allowing for the estab- lishment of WCR in regions with suitable conditions for WCR far beyond the established spread line and could delay detection unless monitoring activities are utilized in vulnerable regions.
Larval damage to maize was observed in Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Romania and Italy in 2002. This was the first year of observed larval damage in Italy. This damage occurred in the Lombardy region. The great- est area of larval damage observed in 2002, however, occurred in Hungary and Croatia.
2003
The spread of WCR continued in most of the infested countries in 2003.
However, limited spread occurred in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Romania. This was possibly due to barriers, such as mountains, and unfavourable weather, such as hot and dry conditions. Significant spread was observed in the extensive maize-growing area of northern Italy. The jumping spread of WCR resulted in new occurrences of the pest in areas of France and Switzerland removed from previous infestation areas. Also in 2003, new WCR infestations were recorded for Belgium(Food Agency of Belgium, 2003), The Netherlands (Lammers et al., 2004) and UK (Cheek et al., 2004), all near airports. In 2003, WCR was not detected in the following countries which had monitoring activities: Albania (Cota, 2004), Germany (Baufeld, 2004) and Greece (Tsitsipis et al., 2004).
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As of October 2003, the European Union introduced emergency meas- ures to prevent the spread of WCR within the European Community (Commission Decision 2003/766/EC). Also, the Central and Eastern European countries of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovak Republic initiated a new regional activity for Integrated Pest Management for WCR in Central and Eastern Europe as an FAO Trust Fund Project (GTFS/RER/017/ITA; donor: Government of Italy). The activity is designed:
to protect maize production in Central Europe from losses caused by WCR through the development and implementation of IPM strategies by farmers, based on sound understanding of local agro-ecosystems and protection of biodiversity as the main element of sustainability of agricultural production.
Although not the major area of emphasis, the continuation of in-country monitoring is included in this project.