On the 23^rd of November 2023, PurPest workpackage leaders gathered virtually to discuss ongoing project activities at the Executive Board Meeting.

This exchange provided a platform for an in-depth review of the progress made, allowing to address any challenges encountered, and pave the way for coordinated actions in upcoming tasks of the project.

Industry partners, plant protection officers and interest groups discussed the use of a VOC based Sensor prototype platform (SPP) to detect and stop quarantine pests in the first stakeholder meetings for the EU project PurPest on October 25^th, 2023. The first SPP model was presented in 3-D images by Damien Bazin, Chromatotec.

Luís Bonifácio gave an oral presentation as a Keynote speaker on “The Pine Wilt Disease in Europe (Portugal and Spain): Special emphasis on the control measures development and future research prospects” at IUFRO International Symposium on Pine Wilt Disease “PWD2023” in Nanjing, China (25-28 October 2023).

National Technology Day, organized by the Division of Food and Society at the Apelsvoll farm, close to Gjøvik, Norway, under the topic precision plant protection.

Andrea Ficke presented the the PurPest concept  there and talked about the use of VOCs in plant protection and pest detection.

The Portuguese team of PurPest, responsible for disseminating activities of the project, attended the 53^rd Annual Meeting of the Organization of Nematologists of Tropical America, where they actively promoted the project and presented a poster. The event was held in Cairo, Egypt, from 24 to 29 September 2023.

PhD student David Pires presented a...

The PurPest coordinator team from NIBIO was present at the 12^th International Congress of Plant Pathology (ICPP), that took place in Lyon, France, from 20-25 August 2023.

 Ted Turlings gave an oral presentation on “Exploiting herbivore-induced plant volatiles for crop protection”, at the International Conference on Insect Science, in Baoding, China (6-10 August 2023) - Programme and other informations. 

He also gave additional lectures in China during his stay.

Two group members gave an oral presentation at the 38^th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Chemical Ecology (23-27 July 2023), in Bengaluru, India:

1. Carla Arce, Marine Mamin, Gregory Röder, Arooran Kanagendran, Emmanuel Defossez, Sergio Rasmann, Terunobu Akiyama, Kosuke Minami, Genki Yoshikawa, Wen Tan, Felipe Lopez-Hilfiker, Ted Turlings - Odor sensors to detect and...