Monitoring of pesticides in ambient air: Prioritization of substances.

Despite the richness of data collected on pesticide concentrations in ambient air in France, knowledge on this topic remains partial and heterogeneous in the absence of specific regulations. The population exposure remains thus difficult to estimate; therefore it was necessary to define modalities for implementing national monitoring of pesticides in ambient air in metropolitan France and in the overseas territories. The objective of this work was to identify which active substances (a.

Development of a rapid methodology for biological efficacy assessment in banana plantations: application to reduced dosages of contact fungicide for Black Leaf Streak Disease (BLSD) control.

Background: Black sigatoka is the main disease of banana crop production and is controlled by using either systemic or contact fungicides through spray applications. Biological efficacy is typically assessed on a whole cropping cycle with a natural infestation and periodic spray applications. Developing a faster methodology for assessment of the biological efficacy of a contact fungicide offers promising perspectives for testing current and new fungicides or application techniques.

Proposal on a sustainable strategy to avoid point source pollution of water with plant protection products.

Based on the results and lessons learned from the TOPPS project (Training the Operators to prevent Pollution from Point Sources), a proposal on a sustainable strategy to avoid point source pollution from Plant Protection Products (PPPs) was made. Within this TOPPS project (2005-2008), stakeholders were interviewed and research and analysis were done in 6 pilot catchment areas (BE, FR, DE, DK, IT, PL). Next, there was a repeated survey on operators' perception and opinion to measure changes resulting from TOPPS activities and good and bad practices were defined based on the Best Management Practices (risk analysis).