Under a five-year program, that commenced in June 2018, Forest and Wood Products Australia will facilitate matching IPMG member company’s contributions with Commonwealth Government funds to enable effective delivery of Applied Research and Extension for the plantation industry, particularly in WA. The additional funds will allow the IPMG to provide the capacity to enable multi-party coordination of regional or national scale applied R,D&E projects from project development, through to funding, implementation, reporting, extension and industry adoption Expected outcomes of the implementation of an IPMG coordinating position will be: Improved coordination of industry-led collaborative R&D projects with greater commercial relevance Improved R&D operational [...]

In 2017 the IPMG partnered with the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), BiCEP Alliance, Forestry South Africa, IPEF Brazil, Murdoch University, and Forest and Wood Products Australia to investigate a model system for the discovery and development of biocontrol agents against forest pests. As one the most important herbivorous insect pests affecting Eucalyptus plantations, the project is using Gonipterus weevils and their associated parasitoids to develop the model system. Historically only one species of weevil; Gonipterus scutellatus was thought to be involved. Recent studies however, have shown that G. scutellatus was misidentified and that a number of different Gonipterus species [...]