Senior Technical Support Lead – Southern Europe, Bioline Agrosciences
Manuel Gomez is the Senior Technical Support Lead – Southern Europe for Bioline Agrosciences and has been working in the biocontrol sector and within Bioline Agrosciences for more than 20 years.
His role is focussed in three main areas; being responsible for technical support, co-ordination of crop teams and field development, as well as the internal and external training programs of ‘The Bioline Academy’. He also represents Bioline in regional and international conferences and working groups.
On one hand, for growing speciality crops to export to markets such as Europe, where there is a high pressure of legislation to ensure the importation of clean and residue free food, Biocontrol and Biosolutions is an increasingly used solution. Alongside this more pest pressure and pesticide resistance/ withdrawal will drive growers towards a greater IPM approach.
On the other hand, an increase in internal consumption throughout the continent brought about by Africa’s rising income levels and rapidly growing population, will mean the demand for food will soar in the medium term. This will create new growth opportunities in Agriculture, as well as in the longer term more demand for clean and pesticide residue free products.
The main challenge in my daily role is to find the most appropriate and innovative solutions to solve current and emerging problems in different crops and areas, in the context of changing environmental conditions. And to disseminate this information to staff, technicians and growers in an easy to understand and practical way.
Bioline AgroSciences produces more than 30 species of biological control organisms which are used for control of insect pests in a variety of crops. We are the owners of 10 patents and we currently offer more than 200 products in our portfolio. We have over 100 species of Trichogramma in storage for future research and product development and each of these has many specific strains. We are the major producer of Ephestia eggs for our Trichogramma production as well as other species.
I will share information about the importance of combining all the available tools for a reliable control of Tuta absoluta, highlighting the introduction of Trichogramma achaeae, which is a parasitoid of Tuta absoluta eggs, that has been shown to contribute positively to the control of this pest. Bioline Agrosciences has incorporated it into its strategy within an integrated program, with the trade name Tricholine TA.
We review the evolution of the introduction strategies of this parasitoid in tomato crops and the recommendations for its integration into a control program of Tuta absoluta. It has proven to be a highly effective solution, easy to adopt in IPM and non-IPM programs, which provides the only tool to target Tuta Eggs, when mirids are not released. Moreover, it allows the reduction of chemical inputs and is a tool for resistance management, amongst it’s other many advantages.