Automatically generated translation
The SOLARIS project was launched to develop new pest control strategies targeting four pests in order to revitalize soybean fields in the Southwest. This project covers the organic production sector, which has suffered the most damage, as well as conventional agriculture. As part of PARSADA, this project, led by Terres Inovia, presented its R&D activities on April 10 in Baziège.
Since 2024, soybean acreage in France has declined significantly, particularly in the Southwest—its main production region—due to increasing pressure from four pests: the bean armyworm, the green stink bug (and potentially the devil’s bug), and the tomato leafroller (or Heliothis). The damage observed, particularly in non-irrigated fields (which have been common in organic production until now), is unprecedented and threatens the profitability of soybean crops and their continued inclusion in crop rotations.
In light of this, the objective of the SOLARIS project, which is part of the PARSADA initiative, is to develop and evaluate new control strategies (combining direct and indirect control measures) to overcome technical bottlenecks and limit the use of problematic active ingredients.
This work is expected to last five years and involve over 2 million euros. The technical institute leading this project will be joined by three partners: Creabio, Lidea, and RAGT Semences. SOLARIS also involves numerous regional partners and service providers.
The project will focus on four key areas:
• Gaining a better understanding of
pest population dynamics• Developing and evaluating new direct and indirect
control methods• Jointly designing innovative technical protocols that incorporate the most relevant
new control methods• Supporting the transfer of best practices and acquired knowledge to farmers
PARSADA: An Ambitious Plan to Find Alternatives
The agricultural sector is facing growing challenges in crop protection due to the rise in pests and the withdrawal of certain active ingredients, which can lead to technical dead ends. To address these issues and ensure production security, a plan called PARSADA was launched in 2023.
Its goal is to maintain effective crop protection through research and the development of alternative solutions, focusing on strategies that combine multiple approaches and have a low environmental impact.
PARSADA is distinguished by a large-scale, cross-sector approach. The main challenges identified concern weed and pest management, which are heavily impacted by product restrictions and the effects of climate change.
Terres Inovia plays a major role in this plan by participating in 11 key projects covering all of its crops.
A monitoring program to better understand the population dynamics of the four pests
To gain a better understanding of flight dynamics, the SOLARIS project plans to establish a pest observatory that will monitor pest presence and the damage they cause, primarily in the Aquitaine and Midi-Pyrénées regions. The goal is to cover a sufficiently diverse range of production conditions (soil, climate, practices) to ultimately study the relationship between variations in flight dynamics and those in production factors. Four monitoring campaigns will be conducted from 2026 to 2029.
SOLARIS Project Observatory: The Network in 2026
• 28 partners involved•
114 plots monitored
Launching a breeding program to develop lepidopteran-tolerant varieties
The project will support the launch of a variety selection program, featuring early maturity suited to France, incorporating targeted resistance genes whose effectiveness has been demonstrated against certain Lepidoptera. These resistance genes are present in various genetic materials that will be used as donor parents to introgress these genes into elite lines of the early-maturing group.
Introgression work will begin in 2026 to produce an initial set of elite genetic material, the efficacy of which against the cotton looper and the bean armyworm should be evaluable by the end of the project in 2030.
Agricultural strategies for reducing harmful pest populations
Various preventive measures have been identified as potentially having an impact on one or more of the target pests:
• Delaying the planting date (stink bugs and corn earworms): in addition to its potential as a strategy to avoid pests, the project will also assess its effectiveness as a strategy to avoid water stress.
• Mass trapping of the first generation in fallow fields (corn earworm): the corn earworm is an insect specific to soybeans that emerges from former soybean fields after pupating in the soil. At this stage of the life cycle, the initial populations remain small enough to suggest that mass trapping could be effective. The project will focus on identifying how to trap the insect and on deploying initial proof-of-concept demonstrations.
• Further investigation of the known effects of certain practices (irrigation for the soybean loopers and tillage for the soybean loopers and corn earworms) to better understand their mode of action.
These practices will be tested in trials between 2026 and 2030.
New tools for direct action
• Evaluation of new "kill" solutions using biocontrol products and
parasitoids• Development of "attract" devices (for stink bugs) using trap plants (particularly staggered-cycle soybean strips) and/or attractants or repellents.
This approach aims, where possible, to combine these methods to achieve an “attract and kill” strategy.
Innovative technical approaches that incorporate the strategies identified as the most effective
Since most of the new strategies under consideration are innovative, it is important to envision how they could be integrated into future soybean production practices, in combination with all other potential strategies that have proven effective in trials.
An initial step will involve designing these new production systems, which will need to be adapted to specific field conditions—such as soil, climate, and farming practices—allowing us to assess the potential risk for each pest and thus identify which one(s) to prioritize.
These innovative management strategies will undergo a technical and economic evaluation before being tested in the field. This field trial will allow us to assess feasibility and performance under real-world farming conditions.