Protecting our trees with natural enemies
Trees and forests are invaluable. They create important ecosystems, clean the air we breathe, cool our climate, produce food and lumber for society, and offer us beauty in our daily lives.
Due to the increased global movement of materials and plants as well as changing climate, every year our forests are threatened by new pests and pathogens. As many of these pests are from other countries and are completely new to our forests, they often have no natural enemies in Switzerland and our trees have no way to fight them. However, due to the fragile ecosystems in forests, we cannot use pesticides or other agricultural methods to protect trees. Biocontrol uses natural enemies to help fight harmful pests and is an important way we can protect our forests without harming the ecosystem. At WSL we research pests and look for new biocontrol methods to fight them.
At our booth we present two pests of Chestnut trees. The first, Chestnut blight, was introduced into Europe in the 1950s and we will show you how the pathogen can be successfully controlled by a virus. The second is a new pathogen that causes ink disease and we will show you how we are looking for new ways to control this disease. We will also show you lots of other real-life examples of fungi and insects from our work!
At all times we will have academic scientists for you or your children to chat with about what careers in science are like. On Saturday you can also have the chance to talk to our apprentices about what it is like to do an apprenticeship at WSL and work in biocontrol or a molecular lab.
If you are worried about tree diseases in your garden or forest and want more information please come by. On Sunday, we will also have a representative from Waldschutz Schweiz.
