Midwest Biological Control News

Midwest Well Represented as New IOBC Officers are Elected

The Nearctic Region (North America) of the International Organization for Biological Control recently held election for officers for 1997-98, and the upper Midwest is well represented. Larry Charlet, a USDA/ARS entomologist affiliated with North Dakota State University is President-elect. Bob O'Neil, Department of Entomology, Purdue University, will be Vice President. And Rob Wiedenmann, Center for Economic Entomology of the Illinois Natural History Survey, will be Secretary-Treasurer. In addition, the new Corresponding Secretary and editor of the Section's Newsletter is Lindsay Milbrath of North Dakota State. Congratulations to all the newly-elected officers.

IOBC is a world-wide group of people interested in biological control. The membership is composed primarily of scientists who conduct research to implement biological control, but other members include biological control businesses and some practitioners.

IOBC Conference Contributions

In the previous two issues of MBCN, I presented brief summaries of presentations on biological control of insects and plant diseases from the International Organization for Biological Control's (IOBC) international conference, "Technology Transfer in Biological Control: From Research to Practice." This final article on the conference contains summaries of weed biological control.

A novel, broad-host pathogen and delivery system for controlling weeds - S. Yang, USDA, Frederick, MD

Instead of the usual host specific plant pathogens, non- or low-virulent pathogens could be applied in special oil-based carriers that allow them to infect and kill many weed species. Native pathogens and biological control: field application of Rhizoctonia solani and Fusarium spp. on Euphorbia esula - A. Caesar, USDA, Bozeman, MT

Leafy spurge infests millions of acres of rangeland in the Northern Plains. Several strains of two native soil-borne pathogens were isolated from diseased or dying plants and applied as granular formulations in test plots with or without spurge-feeding insects. Significant reductions in weed stand density were measured in some experiments conducted in Montana. Development of Ascochyta caulina as a mycoherbicide for control of Chenopodium album - J. Allen, Ciba, Switzerland

Although this pathogenic fungus selectively infects lamb's-quarters, its potential as a mycoherbicide is limited by the need for high relative humidity for successful foliar infection. Attempts to reduce moisture requirements by adding humectants, stickers and an oil emulsion did not work. Biological control agents of musk thistle, Carduus nutans L. (Asteraceaea) in the United States - G. Campobasso, USDA, Rome, Italy

Puccinia cardorum

- Susan Mahr, University of Wisconsin - Madison

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