BAUFELD, Peter
Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Department for National and International Plant Health, Federal Republic of Germany

Up to the year 2000 there are five introductions in Europe – in the beginning of 90ies (official) or earlier in the 80ies in Yugoslavia (Belgrad airport), in 1998 in Italy (Vienna airport), in 2000 in Albania (Tirana airport), a second location in Italy (Milan airport) and in Switzerland (Lugano-Agno airport, canton Tessin). They show that there are pathways for the introduction of the Western corn rootworm (WCR). The questions of monitoring, containment and eradication of WCR get more and more importance for all corn growing non-infested countries in Europe because of the actual danger of introduction.

The EU regulates the case of introduction of a quarantine pest in Council Directive 2000/29/EC Articles 3 and 16. Italy has the greatest experience in the eradication of hot spots (infested areas) and the measures are suitable for successful eradication. Nevertheless, there is still an infestation because of disregard of ordered measures by several farmers.

Eradication consists of three main activities (International standards for phytosanitary measures: Guidelines for pest eradication programs, FAO, Rome, 1999): surveillance, containment and treatment. Surveillance includes complete investigation of the distribution of the pest, containment has to keep of the pest from spreading and treatment is aimed at eradicating the pest when found.

The paper gives an overview of the measures to be taken depending on the infestation situation. In addition to the Italian containment and eradication measures, it makes proposals on how to increase eradication probability before first introduction and in the case of introduction. These include hints for information, monitoring (endangered areas/location, grit for trapping, monitoring and control in non-corn fields neighboring infested fields, checking of satellite fields at a distance of up to 50 km, monitoring of possible cucurbit fields) and prevention of the introduction of the WCR using plants with untreated attached soil (infrequent egg laying also in other fields).

Early recognition of introduction is decisive for successful eradication. The costs for timely monitoring are lower than treatment costs and crop losses. Because in some cases it is impossible to monitor the whole corn area of a country, monitoring should focus on endanged areas/locations. In the case of introduction the monitoring area should not be to small because of the good fly capability of the beetles and should include also non-corn fields adjacent to the infested fields and fields with cucurbits (such as in Austria oil pumpkins: Cucurbita pepo L. convar. citrullina var. styriaca). At least fast reaction on introductions and consequent implementation of eradication measures are necessary to be successful.