effective baculovirus agents to enter the regional vegetable markets of ASEAN. Local production of baculoviruses should be expanded and marketing channels developed. There is a variety of commercial products already available from sources in Europe or India; yet, these are not available in ASEAN. Although, as indicated above, control of flea beetles using BCA was seen as problematic, the field trials conducted by the Project testing Bt var tenebrionis and entomopathogenic nematodes have shown encouraging results. In particular, with regard to Bt var tenebrionis, there exist high quality products on the international market; yet, this microbial has been only registered in Vietnam to date (see Appendix I). Nematodes are produced by the DOA in Thailand and sold by few private companies, but are not broadly available in AMS. Both BCA appear to be at least as effective against flea beetles as common chemical compounds and merit broader promotion and application. The Project ‘ASEAN Sustainable Agrifood Systems’ will repeat the trials in a bid to develop an effective IPM strategy against flea beetles, frequent damage by which could be confirmed in cabbages by recent observations in Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam and Thailand. Two factors will determine the future of neem-based products for control of vegetable pests: (1) availability of high quality products that are properly registered (many regulatory issues remain for botanicals, which should be resolved); (2) since neem and other botanicals usually exhibit a lower efficacy than synthetic pesticides, their use requires application strategies that target young pest stages at higher frequencies. Such adaptation of application methods must be effectively conveyed to farmers; quite often wrong application results in underperformance or failure of plant extracts (see section 2.4). Nevertheless, despite the quality and application issues, it remains a fact that neem extracts (and its AI azadirachtin) are quite commonly available in AMS (see Appendix I). So there apparently exists a demand for neem. We suggest that the use of neem could be expanded significantly once the aforementioned problems are addressed adequately and its effectiveness in a biocontrol-based IPM strategy can be demonstrated. Fruits are considered to be important cash crops, besides providing local food for large number of smallholders in Southeast Asia. Fruit-fly pests (Bactrocera spp.) significantly reduce both the quality and quantity of production of various kinds of fruits. In many cases, the losses can reach up to 100%; thus this pest is declared by all of the AMS as the most destructive pest in fruits in the region. All AMS agreed that the term ‘fruit-fly’ will relate to the genus Bactrocera spp. only. Due to the high variety of species and the various references given by AMS for fruit fly identification, it is suggested to harmonise the identification method by using the same identification aid, e.g. Lucid Key or other online resources. 37 3.3 Fruits 3.3.1 Member States’ experiences, scientific evidence, market information (ABC database)
Implementing Biological Control Agents in the ASEAN Region
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