G'Day Stored Product Pest Experts

By Brad Harbison

The 12th Fumigants & Pheromones Conference, a biennial conference on stored product protection, was held in the festival city of Adelaide, South Australia, on March 6-9, 2016. The event, attended by 180 people from 26 countries, was the “best to date” according to conference organizer Dave Mueller, president of Insects Limited.

“The world-class speakers, new Adelaide Conference Center, very special dinner at the Adelaide Oval, record number of sponsors, local host organizers, ‘The Legend’ speaker and the warm weather made this conference the best since 1993 when the first conference was held in Luebeck, Germany,” Mueller said.

The goal of the biennial conference is to bring together people who work in stored product protection worldwide. About 3,000 people from 60 different countries have attended the conferences since the first one was held in Northern Germany in 1993. “This meeting allows for us to partner with like companies in different countries to understand how they perform their business and make comparisons and contrasts with how we ourselves work in the United States,” said Mueller.

As in the past, topics were chosen by the previous evaluation sheets. Speakers are selected after Mueller has vetted them at other conferences, and several speakers are from Mueller’s companies Fumigation Service & Supply and Insects Limited. Additionally, conference sponsors receive a “What’s New” 15-minute segment to discuss their new technology and field research. “What separates this meeting from others throughout the world is that we push hard to offer practical examples and personal field research on what works and what does not work,” Mueller said.

This was the first time the conference was held in Australia. Simon and Sue Ball of Australian Fumigation in Adelaide were the local organizers. Barbara Bass, Peggy Rutkowski and Lisa Orbaugh organized many elements of this conference from their offices in Westfield, Ind. There were about 17 speakers, including Dr. Manaj Nayak, general manager for FSS; Dr. Bobby Corrigan who presented some of his training information from his New York City Rodent Academy; and Dr. John Simmons who directed his comments toward rodent management in food facilities in Europe. In addition, research posters, “What’s New” sessions from manufacturers and industry displays were part of the program.

Australia is an island continent located about 30 hours from Europe and 20 hours from North America by airplane. Many past participants of the Fumigants & Pheromones conferences found it difficult to travel this long distance to attend, organizers said. But the Australians, who live far away from European and North American conferences, were excited to have this event in their country. Adelaide 2016 was attended by 105 Australians. They came from Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney, Adelaide and places in between; and there is a lot of “in between” in Australia. Australian conference attendees represented federal government agencies, grain traders, pheromone distributors, fumigation companies, food companies, universities, fumigant scrubber companies, federal stored product research organizations, bin sealing companies and export grain terminals.

Most of the presentations were practical in nature. Mueller; Pat Kelley, vice president of Insects Limited; and Dr. Greg Daglisch of DAFF offered pheromone topics: “The Practical Use of Pheromones,” “The Practical Use of Beetle Traps,” “Mating Disruption for Indian Meal Moth (Plodia interpuncella) in Food Warehouses” and “The Practical Use of Pheromones in Australia.”

There was much fun and good cheer in Adelaide during the Gala Dinner sponsored by Douglas Products.

Editor’s note: The 13th Fumigants & Pheromones Conference will be held in June 2018 in Indianapolis, Ind. To see additional photos from this year’s event, visit www.insectslimited.com/adelaide.

The author is Internet editor of PCT and can be contacted at bharbison@gie.net