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| Music plays. | Title card. Presentation title: Development of a Pilot Codling Moth SIT Program in New Zealand. Author Information: Jim Walker, PhD, Principal Scientists, Plant & Food Research, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. |
| Good afternoon, my name’s Jim Walker, and I’m a principal scientist with Plant and Food Research in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, where I have been working with tree fruit IPM for my entire career since graduating as a student from Washington State University in the mid-1980’s. I’ve had a long association with Washington State University, and I’ve known many of the people at the Tree Fruit Research Center in Wenatchee. Special thanks to Betsy for inviting me here to speak to you today about development of a pilot codling moth SIT program in New Zealand. | Title slide which contains presentation title and author information, a picture of a codling moth, and the logos of various funding sources for the research project. |
| I want to start with an overview of the New Zealand apple industry, because I think that’s important. Some of the statistics, we’ve got 940 registered orchards, so about ten and a half thousand hectares or 25,000 acres. Our production is around 600, 000 tons and fully ninety percent of the class one fruit as exported. We have only five million domestic consumers, so we have to focus on exports. We have 57 pack houses and 83 exporters. The industry went through some tough times in the early 2000’s following deregulation of the single desk system of selling apples, and by 2012, export earnings had dropped to just 350 million dollars per annum. By 2021 that’s almost now at a billion dollars worth of exports, and the industry has realistic aspirations of being a two billion dollar export industry by 2030. | Slide titled “New Zealand apples, industry overview” contains a photo of an apple orchard and an overview of apple production and exports, as stated in the audio. |
| Talking about our export markets, we have high productivity in New Zealand Orchards, and 60 to 100 tons per hectare is quite common. But we do have a high cost, not of production, but for labor and shipping. Traditionally our markets have been the EU and UK that have taken up to 70 percent of the crop in that earlier period. But today it’s all about Asia, and fully 50 percent of the New Zealand apple crop goes to large markets in Thailand, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. So the industry is very much focused on Asian exports. | An additional bullet point list appears on screen outlining the export market for New Zealand apples. To the right of this is a bar graph of the percentage of market volumes of apples that New Zealand exported to Asia, Europe, UK, and North America in 2005 and 2020. |
| New Zealand’s growing regions and our seasonal climate. It’s a mild maritime climate, so the temperatures are moderate. The mean temperatures are in the range of 20 to 25 degrees Celsius and our winter temperatures, again the means, in the range of 12 to 16 degrees. Hawke’s Bay is two-thirds of our export crop, and that’s at 39 degrees of latitude, Nelson about 25 percent, and then we drop down to Central Otago at just four percent, and that’s at 46 degrees of latitude, so a similar latitude to Washington industry. | Slide titled “New Zealand’s growing regions, seasonal climate” contains an overview of the summer and winter temperatures. To the left there is a map of the growing regions with notes as to the percentages of the export crop for the three main growing locations and their latitudes. Below this is a list of the rainfall in these regions by millimeter. |
| If we think about codling moth in New Zealand, it’s very different to codling moth in Washington State. We have just one to two generations per season, two generations in the North Island region. | A picture of a codling moth appears on the slide along with text highlighting the number of generations per season. |
| Thinking about our crop production system, it’s all integrated fruit production, by and large or IFP. And that was a requirement for the supply of EU and UK markets in the mid-1990s. The old organophosphate program of the mid-1990s quickly faded away over a period of about 10 years. The industry completely transferred from that conventional organophosphate based program through into the selective and biological insecticides that it uses today. Mating disruption use has increased and expanded. We have both codling moth and leafroller mating disruption through the use of combination dispensers. | Slide titled “Integrated Fruit Production (IFP), a requirement for EU/UK markets” contains a bar graph outlining the mean number of organophosphate, selective, and biological sprays per year from 1996 to 2014. Overlays on the graph show when mating disruption was introduced for codling moth and leafroller. |
| So our selective pesticides maximized the opportunity for biological control while also helping to minimize the risk of pesticide residues | Two bullet points appear, outlining the benefits of selective pesticides |
| And under that regime, pests that have declined that were previously important: mealybugs wooly apple aphid, leaf hoppers, and leaf rollers. | To the left of the graph, pictures appear of the pests listed in the audio under the title: Pests that have declined. |
| If we think of the effect of the IFP program and biological control on insecticide toxicity and use in apples in New Zealand, many of the old previously highly toxic products have now gone from the program. And today it’s really only the use of soft or selective pesticides. | Slide titled “Effect of IFP and biological control: on insecticide toxicity and use in apples” contains a bar graph of insecticide toxicity by year from 1995 to 2015. The bars are broken up by the acute toxicity of their components, and we see a complete reduction in highly toxic products in later years. |
| Insecticide use, the number of applications has fallen by about 50 percent nationally. Today we use just 1.4 kilograms of active ingredient per hectare which is about a 90 percent reduction from the mid-1990’s. | Two bullet points appear, highlighting the reduction in active ingredient from 1995 to 2020. |
| The industry has been focused on a low residue crop protection program, and the use of the logo, 100 percent pure apples from New Zealand, is part of that philosophy. The 90 percent reduction in insecticide loading and the selective pest management program has been great, but it has increased the risk of codling moth | The logo for 100 percent pure apples from new Zealand appears on screen. |
| New Zealand apple, factors driving the crop protection program: the export drivers. We’re exporting to 70 or more countries. The EU and UK market wants IFP and towards residue free, so we’ve got to produce, as close as we can, residue-free fruit for Europe. Whereas for Asia, it’s all about phytosanitary control and being pest free. | Slide titled “New Zealand Apples, factors driving crop protection” contains a bullet point list of export drivers as outlined in the audio. |
| The growers conundrum for global market accesses is to get those ultra low residues and pest free crops while still producing premium quality fruit. It’s quite a challenge. | An additional bullet point list appears on screen highlighting the growers conundrum as outlined in the audio. |
| In terms of the residue-free technologies, we’ve got mating disruption. About 40 percent of our export crop has grown with mating disruption. Codling moth granulosis virus is quite widely used, and of course, we’ve been evaluating the sterile insect technique as to how we can incorporate that into our production systems. | An additional bullet point list appears on screen highlighting the residue free technologies currently used. |
| The codling moth sensitive markets, Asia. We do have a regulatory systems-based risk management system for the control of codling moth. Orchards must be registered with the ministry of Primary Industries. So that starts before the trees have even finished bloom. There’s lots of pheromone monitoring, IPM thresholds, use of mating disruption, treatment responses and records. So it’s the whole pathway, all the way through to packing and grading. Everything is audited, all of the inputs, all of the assessments. | Slide titled “Codling moth sensitive markets (Asia), regulatory ‘systems-based’ risk management which contains a flow chart of the different control and detection methods for codling moth, from orchard registration to detection during grading. |
| So it’s fully traceable production, all control decisions, the field assessments, the packhouse measures, and, of course, all of that is independently audited. | A bullet point list appears highlighting that production is fully traceable, and all these measures are independently audited. |
| Out of that, we have had a good history of codling moth control. New Zealand apples ship to Taiwan. In the last 10 years, there has not been a single codling moth found in New Zealand apples in Taiwan. | Text appears on screen highlighting that there have been no codling moths found in exports to Taiwan in 10 years. |
| The potential benefits of codling moth SIT for New Zealand apple growers. It’s all about enhancing market access. The importance of codling moth sensitive Asian markets. The Asian market premiums are some 20,000 to 50,000 dollars per hectare of additional revenue for the grower, and also really thinking about how to challenge some of the existing phytosanitary measures, namely the mandatory methyl-bromide fumigations that are required for certain markets. We also want to further reduce the codling moth risk in our export crops while producing residue-free fruit. | Slide titled “Potential benefits of CM SIT for New Zealand apple growers” contains a bullet point list of way that the market access could be enhanced via SIT. |
| The marketing advantages. Global market access is really important for the New Zealand Apple growers. We want to maintain pest free fruit, and at the same time, low residue fruit out of the same production system. The importance, potentially, is also there for insecticide resistance management to reduce the risk of resistance. Although we’ve never encountered a problem in New Zealand with codling moth resistance to insecticides. | Two additional bullet point lists appear outlining the marketing advantages and insect resistance management potential of SIT. |
| The SIT program starts with Canadian moths from the OK-SIR facility in Okanagan, and begins with our flight from Penticton airport through to Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. The international flight is about 23 hours and 35 minutes, but in total time, it’s about a 30 hour transit. The moths are kept immobile throughout, so they’re shipped at about two degrees centigrade. We’ve been receiving weekly imports of 120,000 moths. | Slide titled “Canadian moths OK-Sir: a winter holiday in New Zealand”. Contains a map of the flight route of the moths from Canada to New Zealand along with information about transit time, temperature, and import numbers. |
| The location of the pilot SIT program. It’s out of Hastings in an area called Central Hawke’s Bay, around Ongaonga, as you see there. So about 50 kilometers away from Hastings, the orchards are isolated. They had low codling moth densities at the onset. There were just three orchards in 2014 and that increased to nine by 2020. The area of 129 hectares at the start, increased to 470 hectares by the end of the program, and there were a mix of IFP and organic orchards in the program. | Slide titled “Location of the Pilot SIT program contains a map of Hawke’s Bay showing the location of the testing, as well as a map of individual orchard locations. A bullet point lists highlights the characteristics of the orchards as outlined in the audio. |
| The SIT moth’s release rates: 153 to 364 per hectare per week, or two thousand to four and a half thousand per hectare per season. So in total, there were about 12 releases per season, and we had an initial overflowing ratio of about 70 to 1, at 70 SIT moths to every wild moth that we believe to be out there. Other IFP control measures were in place. Mostly mating disruption was used, but not always, and typically two insecticides are applied per season for general pest control, including codling moth. | Two additional bullet point lists appear outlining the release rates of the program and other control measures used in the orchards. |
| In terms of season-long catches of wild codling moth on those SIT orchards over time, in 2013 and 2014, the populations were initially low at around one moth per hectare per season. That’s at a trapping density of one trap per hectare. By 2019 to 2020, the populations were now ultra low at one moth per 20 hectares, or thereabouts. So that’s one moth all season in trapping across about 50 acres. So we reached a 90 to 95 percent reduction, but we never reached zero. There were occasional wild hosts of codling moth that we couldn’t remove entirely from the sources of risk, but that was intended to be part of the program. | Slide titled “Season-long catches of wild codling moth on SIT orchards contains a bar graph of the number of moths per ten traps. This data is shown for each year from 2013 to 2021. |
| In 2020 to 2021, there was no increase in codling moth despite no releases of SIT moths due to New Zealand’s lockdowns because of the Covid pandemic. | An image of a Covid virion appears on screen with the text “No releases”. |
| So changes in our SIT moth delivery systems. There have been changes throughout the program. We started pretty modestly with bikes in 2014. We soon progressed to a drone delivery system, a drone or a UAV, and then more recently have been using a DJI hexacopter as part of the program. | Slide titled “Changes in SIT moth delivery systems throughout the program” contains photos of the SIT moth delivery systems along with the years that they were used in the program. |
| The monitoring one track per hectare is standard requirement across export orchards in New Zealand. We have been using 10x lures because that’s the requirement for mating disruption, and then weekly readings of traps identifying the SIT moths. | A bullet point list appears on the slide outlining the monitoring efforts done in the SIT orchards. |
| So the SIT moth recaptures. What we have here is the number of moths recaptured per week per 10,000 SIT moths released. So you can see, the recoveries were in fact quite low, with moths delivered by plane being the least recovered compared to ground-based delivery systems and the hexacopter. | A bar graph titled “SIT moth re-captures” appears on the slide showing the number of moths recaptured each week per 10,000 moths releases versus the moth delivery system used. The hexacopter recaptures are the highest, with vehicle showing less recaptures, and plane showing the lowest rate of recapture. |
| This is just explaining that a little bit more. What we’ve got here is the season-long moth recaptures by the various modalities: the bike, the hexacopter, or the UAV or plane. And the SIT moth recaptures, the hexacopter, we were getting around about 1.5 percent of the moths released back into our pheromone traps under our monitoring program. Whereas with ground-based delivery systems, it was about 0.3 percent and the drone perhaps representing the smallest number of recaptures. | Slide titled “Effect of release methods, season long moth recaptures” contains three bar graphs, each one outlining the number of moth recaptures versus the individual orchard for a particular delivery method, bicycle, plane, or hexacopter. A numbered list to the side of the charts outlines the percentages of moth recapture for the hexacopter, ground delivery, and drone distribution. |
| Comparison of our moth delivery systems. The UAV drone is typically flying an altitude of 45 to 60 meters–depending on the number of pine trees and other major obstacles around–carrying a payload of 22,000 moths in dual pods, one under each wing. What we find is that sometimes, in sort of breezy conditions, challenging conditions (indistinct) moth delivery. And certainly, as the wind speed increases, we couldn’t fly on wind speeds above about 25 kilometers an hour. There was increasing moth drift with altitude. | Slide titled “Comparison of moth delivery systems” contains a photo of the UAV drone along with its altitude and the amount of moths it can carry. Below this is a scatterplot of the drift distance of moths versus the wind speed along with text outlining that moth drift with altitude is a problem with this method. |
| The hexacopter was introduced to address that problem, flying at about half the altitude and with half the payload. What we could see on those orchards where we were delivering not only 15-fold more moths using the drone they were actually quite uniformly distributed. So we felt that the hexacopter was perhaps delivering the moths more efficiently to the intended treated area, whereas we were losing quite a lot out of the orchard potentially with our UAV drone delivery system. | An additional section appears on the slide titled “Hexacopter” which contains a photo of the hexacopter along with its altitude and the amount of moths it can carry. Below this is a plot of season long trap catch across two orchards, showing uniform moth distribution with this method. |
| Now the work rates for each delivery method. So the times that are indicated below are the various orchard sizes for whatever modality we were using, drone, hexacopter, vehicle, or bicycle. So what we can see here is that, for the smaller orchards up to about 60 hectares, the hexacopter is the most efficient, time efficient delivery system. So not only moth efficient but also time efficient for those smaller orchards. The drone taking time to set up and take off and chart its course. But as soon as we get to larger orchards, over about 60 hectares, we into the drone being considerably more efficient, about half the time to treat large areas. So all of the flights were controlled flights, controlled with GPS coordinates and could fly a prescripted pathway for, as near as possible, targeted delivery to the orchard. | Slide titled “Work rates for each delivery method’ contains a chart showing the total time each delivery method takes in a small, medium, and large orchard. |
| So the drone was most efficient at scale, but required about 150 meter runway for safe takeoff. It also required a skill pilot, particularly for landing that was somewhat hazardous, and particularly if conditions were a little bit windy. Nevertheless, they were relatively inexpensive to repair, being foam planes. So they were quite inexpensive to operate. | A bullet point list appears on the slide outlining the positives and negatives of the drone delivery method. |
| Hexacopters, more flights are required, so slower. Visual flight is perhaps a little bit easier, particularly under New Zealand’s CAA, that’s an agency that controls the use of drones. It could be flown by any reasonably techy operator. And, to date, we have had no crashes. | An additional bullet point list appears which outlines the positives and negatives of the hexacopter delivery method. |
| We have looked at various release device developments. We have GPS automated opening systems at various waypoints around our circuits. So the drone pods, we have an airspeed of about 60 to 70 kilometers an hour, delivering the payload fully over about a 10-minute flight with progressive opening of the shoot at the back of the tube. The hexacopter hopper is a combination of gravity plus air feed for moth delivery. So again, all things GPS automated opening, increasing at the various waypoints around the surface. | Slide titled “Release device developments, GPS automated opening at waypoints” contains photos of the release devices for the drone and hexacopter. Both systems are mounted to the bottom of the device. |
| We’ve also been looking at experimental release devices, namely for the hexacopters, in terms of trying to achieve, I guess, different delivery systems and a better moth survival from the delivery system. | An additional section appears on the slide titled “Experimental release devices” which contains diagrams of potential release devices for the hexacopter. |
| In 2019 we planned expansion to Hawke’s Bay. Hastings City is a city of about 70,000 people, and there are very urban populations of codling moth and orchards nearby. Our trapping grid across the city identified moth populations up to about 0.4 moths per trap per day, so about three moths per trap, per week. That was important as part of our planning and thinking about the consequences of moving to an area-wide program, but we also surveyed residents attitudes. Attitudes to the SIT moth releases were generally positive, and surprisingly also to drone flights, where they knew that might help to reduce the frequency of air blast spraying activity in those adjacent areas to our urban environment. | Slide titled “2019: planned expansion to Hawke’s Bay, Hastings city: peri-urban codling moth” contains a diagram showing trap catches across the city with high rates seen in some areas. To the left of this is a picture of an apple orchard during harvest. |
| Everything changed in March 2020, Covid-19, what a year. We’ve had various lockdowns and that in New Zealand, but have largely been the Covid free until Omicron arrived recently. We’ve had no entry. The borders have been closed, and really quite a strict bubble in the South Pacific. There have been no direct flights, no SIT moth shipments have been possible, and so the program was suspended. | Slide titled “March 2020: COVID 19, what a year!” contains a bullet point list and supporting photos highlighting that there were no direct flights, no SIT moths, and that the program was suspended. |
| The economics and benefits of an SIT program. The pilot SIT program, the total area around 470 hectares or 1200 acres. Science and industry funding support. OK-SIR subsidized moth shipments. The actual cost was around 238 dollars per hectare, or US, about 64 dollars per acre, but in reality, the true costs were probably closer to 500 dollars per hectare. Air Freight to New Zealand was 50 percent of the total program costs. | Slide titled “Economics and benefits of SIT program” contains a bullet point list breaking down the total costs of the programs operations. |
| The benefits of the SIT program. Residue-free pest management is really what the industry wants. Long-term suppression of codling moth is another advantage. And local elimination of the codling moth market access risks is something that all growers want to achieve. Potentially it is there for if we can further lower the pest status of codling moth in New Zealand, which is already low. Some possibility of renegotiation of the phytosanitary measures and mandatory fumigation with methyl bromide is really something that the industry wants. | An additional bullet point list appears outlining the benefits of an SIT program on the fruit industry of New Zealand. |
| So the future for SIT codling moth in New Zealand. This is a New Zealand perspective. SIT moth supply. The Canadian shipments were economically and logistically challenging. So we’ve been looking at other ways of perhaps achieving SIT moth production in New Zealand, potentially through the importation of eggs which might be reared and irradiated in New Zealand. We don’t yet have that irradiation facility, but potentially through our preparedness for fruit fly border incursions, we could develop such a facility in New Zealand. The issue is really who funds that. | Slide titled “Future of SIT for codling moth control? A New Zealand perspective” contains a bullet point list outlining the challenges to obtaining SIT moths and potential solutions to this issue. |
| An apple industry perspective. Use in defined production areas as a possibility, rather than in fact, fully area-wide national programs. It does potentially provide that additional level of market risk protection for our export programs. And again, the target is those sensitive export markets in Asia, particularly Japan and Korea. And the potential for the technology to create areas of pest freedom, or potentially areas of low pest prevalence, which might be helpful in negotiating the use and elimination of mandatory methyl bromide fumigations. | An additional bullet point list appears outlining the potential risks and benefits of an SIT program on the apple industry. |
| The challenge for SIT in New Zealand is not now. Covid induced labor shortages, disrupted shipping schedules, even harvesting is particularly challenging at the moment. so our growers are focused on those bigger issues, not SIT at the moment. | Text appears at the bottom of the slide highlighting Covid induced issues with the SIT program. |
| And with that I’d like to close my talk. I’d like to say thank you. Thank you to Betsy for inviting us to have the opportunity to speak, and I also acknowledge the many parties that have contributed in some way to the SIT program in New Zealand. Thank you. | Concluding slide which contains author contact information and the logos of funding sources and collaborators. |
| Music plays. | Credits for presentation and video production roll. |
Link to YouTube video: Codling Moth-New Zealand
