History of the Working Group on Integrated Control in Oilseed Crops



The history of the working group ´Integrated Control in Oilseed Crops´ (ICOC) goes back to the seventies of the last century.

In 1979, a study group split away from the working group ´Integrated Control in Brassicas´, led by Tom Coaker, which focussed mainly on the cabbage root fly (Delia radicum).

Bent Bromand, a Danish entomologist (Danish Research Centre for Plant Protection, Lyngby, Denmark), tried together with his Swedish colleague, Christer Nilsson (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences - SLU, Alnarp, Sweden), to establish a separate working group on ´Integrated Control in Oilseed Rape´. This working group was founded in 1982. In the meantime (1979-1982), it had the status of a study group. Both study and working group were led by Bent Bromand.

During 1979-1988, Bent Bromand organized four workshops of the group (refer to the WG Chronicle). He handed over his convenorship in 1988 and was followed by Volker Paul (University of Paderborn, Germany).

The new convenor Volker Paul was in his honorary position between 1988 and 2003. He was assisted by Ingrid Williams (Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom), who led the entomology subgroup, which was established during this time. Ingrid Williams and Volker Paul organized twelve group/subgroup meetings within this time period (refer to the Web page "Former Meetings"). In 1990, the group decided to expand its activities from oilseed rape to other oilseed crops and to change its title to the ´Working Group on Integrated Control in Oilseed Crops´. During 1988-2003 Volker Paul and Ingrid Williams edited seven IOBC/wprs Bulletins together with assisting colleagues. They handed over their convenorships in 2003 (Volker Paul) and 2004 (Ingrid Williams), respectively.

They were followed by Birger Koopmann (University of Göttingen, Germany) and Samantha Cook (Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom), elected in 2003 at the 11th IRC Conference in Copenhagen (Denmark), and 2004 at the WG-meeting in Rothamsted (UK), respectively. During this time, workshops were organized at Rothamsted, UK in 2004, Poznan, Poland in 2005, Paris, France in 2008, Göttingen, Germany in 2011 and Belveaux, Luxembourg in 2013. As a result of these meetings five IOBC/wprs Bulletins were compiled and published together with other colleagues as members of the editorial board.

In 2013 the new convenor Malgorzata Jedryczka (Institute for Plant Genetics - IGR, Poznan, Poland) was elected and Samantha Cook kindly offered to remain as lead of the Entomology subgroup. Since then, three working group meetings were organized: in Tartu (Estonia) in 2016; Zagreb (Croatia) in 2018 and, due to the Covid pandemic, an online metting was held in 2022, which was organized by our French colleagues from Rennes. Bulletins of all the three meetings have been compiled and published.
In 2024, about one year after the end of the Covid pandemic, a physical meeting was again possible, organized at the Technische Universität Dresden (Germany). A preceding volume was published for this meeting.
At this meeting, both Malgorzata Jedryczka and Samantha Cook handed over their positions as convenor and co-convenor to new colleagues. Nazanin Zamani-Noor (JKI Braunschweig, Germany) was elected as convenor to succeed Malgorzata Jedryczka. Ivan Juran (University of Zagreb, Croatia) was elected to take responsibility as the co-convenor for the entomology sub-group, succeeding Samantha Cook.


History of the IOBC WG ICOC - Published information