IWGO - Biocontrol of Ostrinia and Other Maize Pests
Convenors
Dr. Ulli KUHLMANN, Switzerland, u.kuhlmann@cabi.org
Dr. Dominic REISIG, USA, ddreisig@ncsu.edu
Dr. Feng ZHANG, China, f.zhang@cabi.org
Consult the IWGO website for details of the next working group meeting, for general information about this working group and for newsletters.
The next and 29th IWGO Conference will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, between 28th and 31st of October 2025.
We like to inform you that we will partner with the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI) who will co-host the IWGO event at their MARDI Auditorium on the MARDI campus in Putrajaya, away from the hustle of Kuala Lumpur city. Despite the high interest in fall armyworm, we would like to point out that the scientific programme will not only focus on fall armyworm control options and that other topics will be discussed too, such as the success and challenges of non-chemical control approaches of different maize pests and the genomics of maize pest insects. A field trip will be organized in collaboration with MARDI and offered for optional registration on Friday 31st of October 2025. In the next step, we will contact you to collect ideas for scientific session and to identify teams of co-session organizers following the format of earlier IWGO conferences.
More information: https://www.iwgo.org/news
IWGO Subgroup launched for fall armyworm in Africa
The 26th Conference of the IOBC-Global International Working Group of Ostrinia and other maize pests (IWGO) successfully took place in the National Agricultural Library of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) in Beijing from 10-12 April 2017. It was organized by the IWGO Co-Convenor Dr Wang Zhenying from the Institute of Plant Protection (IPP) of CAAS. Overall, 98 experts from 11 countries participated and the programme featured 11 scientific sessions with 52 oral presentations and 9 poster presentations covering a range of interrelated topics.
Victor Clottey from CABI in Ghana, was invited by the IWGO conference organizers to deliver a keynote presentation about the current spread and current limited number of management options for the fall armyworm in Africa.
In response, the IOBC-Global Working Group launched a Subgroup under IWGO focussing on the fall armyworm, the new invader in Africa – similar to the response to the western corn rootworm invasion in Europe in the 1990s. The overall objective of this new Subgroup is to establish an independent, internationally recognized platform for the exchange of research results, experiences and ideas on the biological control based pest management of fall armyworm.
As a first action, the first Subgroup meeting will be organized in Ghana or Kenya in spring 2018 with strong regional participation. IWGO will recruit fall armyworm experts who have been dealing with this pest for many years in other parts of the world to attend and share existing biological control based pest management knowledge.
Ulli Kuhlmann, Victor Clottey, Tom Sappington and Wang Zhenyeng (from left to right). Victor Clottey has agreed to help facilitate the new IWGO subgroup on the fall armyworm until the first meeting takes place in Africa early spring 2018 (photo: KCS, Delémont).
IWGO Conference 2017, Photos:
(Photo credit: KCS, Delémont)
Group Photo:
26th IWGO Conference participants from North America, Europe, Asia, South America and Africa, with above-average attendance by scientists from China.
