In early November, Geoff Norton gave two seminars on Lucid based digital tools. The first seminar, at the Korean Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (www.qia.go.kr), focussed on the increasing use of Lucid based tools in quarantine, including examples from the USA and Europe.

The second seminar – involving staff and post-graduate students at Chungbuk National University (www.cbnu.edu/eng/) – was more concerned with the general role that Lucid based tools are playing in more general agricultural support.

Given that taxonomic and crop diagnostic expertise has seen an almost universal decline in recent years, the seminar provided examples of how identification and crop diagnostic apps have been developed and used to provide systematic help and information to support quarantine and plant protection decisions. For more information – contact Geoff at [email protected]

Geoff in discussion with Prof Cheng Jiaan – entomologist and recent Vice President of Zhejiang University

Geoff Norton visited Hangzhou, China in mid-November to give a series of lectures at Zhejiang University and at Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences to discuss a number of issues with Chinese colleagues, including:

• Recent Lucid activities in China (see Spotlight article) and plans for future collaboration.
• Discussing projects using the Lucid platform for developing tools to support the diagnosis of rice pest, disease and other disorders and to develop a complementary tool aimed at supporting decisions regarding the most appropriate “Green” cropping systems for specific rice farms.

In March Geoff Norton visited The Faculty of Agriculture at the Universiti Putra (UPM), Selangor, Malaysia to give a public lecture on the use of Lucid for facilitating the development of decision support tools. Following the lecture, Geoff had discussions with various UPM staff and then visited Dr Sivapragasam (Regional Director of the CABI – South East Asia office) and other CABI colleagues to discuss potential links on crop diagnostics.