Russell Ipm Ltd

Globally, 80% of commercial soft fruit can be lost as waste due to damage caused by an invasive fruit fly, spotted wing drosophila (SWD). Growers rely on full field sprays of chemical insecticides to protect fruit from SWD, costing £11bn. Recently strawberry growers have also recorded increasing incidence of damage from earwigs with crop losses of 10-30% ...

UK berry production contributed £629M to the economy in 2021, increasing income by a third within 10 years. Berry production is also essential for human health as high-value and high-quality fruits provide a range of antioxidants, vitamins and fibre. However, berry production faces challenges in production related to a range of emerging and increasing pes...

Fruit-growing generates over £1 billion for the UK economy annually with apples and pears contributing over £250 million. Forest bug, _Pentatoma rufipes_, is an emerging pest in orchards, probably driven by the withdrawal of pesticides, and the effects of climate change. It causes fruit deformity and pitting which can result in up to 40% losses in product...

The global soft fruit industry suffers up to 80% crop losses from an invasive fruit fly, spotted wing drosophila (SWD). Growers rely on chemical insecticides to protect fruit from SWD, costing £11bn. We have identified a SWD pathogenic fungus and a bait which SWD feeds on. In this project we will test these two approaches in combination, to develop a more...

To develop low-cost digital solutions for the monitoring of pests using smart pheromone-based trap sensors and their innovative IoT connectivity.

"The UK fruit industry is under continual pressure from introduction of non-native pests and diseases. Spotted wing drosophila (SWD), _Drosophila suzukii_, was first detected in the UK in 2013 and populations have increased year-on-year since then. The pest lays eggs in fruit before ripening and the larvae destroy the fruit from the inside, so the damage ...

The accurate monitoring of pests is vital to profitable crop and livestock production and to human health and optimises pest management through improved interventions. This project will develop a full SmartTraps system for remote autonomous monitoring of Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), an invasive soft and stone fruit pest that has increased the cost of pr...

To develop the iPEST smart-trap with embedded remote pest-recognition system for pheromone based insect monitoring traps, enabling rapid response decision to farmers facing invasive and resident pests.

General semiochemical repellents are widely used for protecting humans and livestock from attacks by arthropod pests in developing and developed countries, but they have been little explored or used for crop protection. The aim of this project is to prove the concept that volatile, repellent chemicals can be used to reduce the damage caused to agricultura...

Damage caused by fruit flies is a huge problem, both in the developed and developing world. The insects lay eggs in soft fruit and vegetables which means the food rots and cannot be harvested. Fruit flies cannot be controlled effectively by insecticides because farmers in developing countries cannot afford to buy them and in addition, the fruit flies have...

This project will investigate the feasibility of developing an autonomous SmartTraps system for remotely monitoring adult Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), an invasive fruit pest. The feasibility of rapidly and accurately identifying the near microscopic Spotted Wing Drosophila males and females by image analysis in a compact, autonomous, non-saturating trap...

to improve traps for the control of thrips and whiteflies in greenhouse crops.