Last week, members of the AUSVEG’s biosecurity team attended the 2022 Plant Biosecurity Research Symposium in Adelaide.

Held at the National Wine Centre, the two-day event attracted plant biosecurity experts from across Australia, New Zealand and Europe.

The event provided good opportunity for attendees to hear research that addresses major biosecurity threats to our plant industries and to connect with other plant biosecurity experts after over two years of sharing their learnings and collaboration via computer screens.

AUSVEG National Manager for Engagement and Extension, Zarmeen Hassan, presented on the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment Funded Peri-Urban Biosecurity Surveillance Pilot Program.

Highlighting the importance of early detection for improved outcomes for our plant industries, the program is focus on high-risk areas of incursions located around seaports, airports and the urban fringe, intensive food production and may serve either as an incubator or a first point of detection when new pests and diseases arrive in the country.

The event featured key insights from researchers across the iMapPESTS R&D portfolio and a demonstration of an opportunistic urban surveillance exercise with one of the new models of the sentinel units (picture above). Attendees were able to get up close and peak inside the automated trapping unit which was sampling airborne insects next to grapevines at the National Wine Centre.