3. IYPH
Outputs

Professional and amateur photographers competed to show their support of the IYPH with photographs of healthy and unhealthy plants.

The IYPH contest received nearly 700 entries from contestants worldwide. An international panel of FAO communications specialists, agricultural experts, professional photographers and photography editors judged the winning photographs in the healthy plant and unhealthy plant categories. The IYPH photo contest jurors were: Sherri Dougherty (photo editor at FAO), John Gilmore (agricultural expert at FAO/USDA-APHIS), Sara Giuliani (public information specialist at FAO/IPPC Secretariat), Adrian Houston (photographer), Mirko Montuori (IYPH Project Officer at FAO/IPPC Secretariat) and Marco Pinna (staff and picture editor at National Geographic Italia).

Judging photography categories:

Photographs of healthy plants – custodians of our air, food and water – capture the natural beauty and reflect the importance of plants as the source of the air we breathe, our food and as protectors of our environment.

Photographs of unhealthy plants illustrate pests attacking plants to show pest or disease damage. Pests are any species, strain or type of plant, animal or pathogen that damage plants or plant products. They include insects, viruses, bacteria, nematodes and invasive plants.

Prizes

Two prizes were awarded in each category: 1) Healthy Plants, and 2) Unhealthy Plants. The first-prize winner in each category received a USD 1 000 voucher for photographic equipment as well as a certificate. The second-prize winner in each category received a USD 500 voucher for photographic equipment and a certificate. Ten honourable mentions (five per category) and two people’s choice awards (voted by social media users) also received a certificate.

First-Prize Winners:

Ciro Schiavone’s entry, The Sacred Wood, won first place in the Healthy Plants category. It shows the forest as a sacred environment due to the importance of large trees, a source of life and an object for humanity.

Joseph Moisan-De Serres won first place in the Unhealthy Plants category for his photo, European skipper larvae feeding on grass, depicting three grass skipper larvae feeding on a blade of grass.

Second-Prize Winners:

Vanessa Nieves Vazquez won second prize in the Healthy Plants category with Pandurata en casa, showing a new leaf on a Ficus lyrata houseplant that is reborn after a plague, Mexico City, Mexico, 2020.

Gautam Buddha Mukherji won second prize in the Unhealthy Plants category with Sigatoka Leaf Spot Disease, a photo taken at night of an edible banana leaf affected by Sigatoka fungus disease.

People’s Choice Winners:

Sophie Papin. An old chestnut tree in a barley field in the Loire Valley, France, spring 2020.

Viet-Cuong Han. Worms eating and dancing on plum (Prunus mume) leaves captured in May 2020 at Chonnam National University, Republic of Korea.

Honourable mentions:

Vinodkumar Selvaraj. Infected flower exhibiting artistic symptom of phytoplasma infection in half of the petals.
Phytoplasma infection in chrysanthemum completely turns the floral parts into green leaf-like structures. This is a serious destructive disease, causing huge yield losses.

Joseph Moisan-De Serres. Apple maggot fly laying egg.
A female apple maggot fly after laying an egg under the skin of an apple.

Oliver Meckes. Pear rust.
Basket-like fruiting bodies of Gymnosporangium sabinae growing out of a pear leaf. Spores (red) are clearly visible. Scanning electron microscope, magnification 15:1 (when 12x12cm wide).

Alfonso Peña Darias. Brevicoryne brassicae.
Purple cabbage with Brevicoryne brassicae, a notable aphid for cabbage species, and its natural enemy Coccinella septempunctata.

Bhupendra Singh Kharayat. Citrus canker caused by Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri (Hasse) Vauterin, et al.
Lesions on the leaves first appear as small, round, watery and translucent. As the disease progresses, the surface of the spots becomes white or greyish and finally ruptures in the centre and gives a rough, corky or canker-like appearance.

Mariano Sayno. Snail invasion.
Damage to an eggplant caused by a land snail. Snails and slugs are both part of the same class of creatures called gastropods. It is a pest of many nursery plants, beans and foliage of cabbage, tomato and weeds. Eggplants are commonly attacked by these pests, which eat large amounts of the flesh of fruits as they mature.

Jose Luis Mendez Fernandez. Whitefly colony.
Whitefly eggs are generally laid near each other on the host plant, usually on a leaf, in spiral patterns or arcs, or sometimes in parallel arcs.

The children of today are the citizens of tomorrow; our actions as parents, guardians and educators will help them become responsible citizens. Educating future generations about the importance of keeping plants healthy and protecting our natural resources from pests and diseases was a goal of the IYPH.

For the International Year of Plant Health 2020, children aged 5 to 13 around the world got creative and showed what protecting plant health means to them. Over 400 IYPH entries were submitted for the art and drawing competition. An international panel screened entries for children aged 5–9 and pre-teens aged 10–13 who participated in the contest. The top three winning poster designs in each category were announced at the IYPH closing ceremony on 1 July and received a gift bag and certificate.

A jury selected three winning poster designs as finalists. The jury for the IYPH art and drawing competition for children consisted of the following IPPC Secretariat members: Riccardo Angela, Arop Deng, John Gilmore, Sara Giuliani, Viivi Kuvaja, Riccardo Mazzucchelli, Mirko Montuori, Natalie Nicora and Paola Sentinelli.

First Prize: Ages 5–9

Waziha Tanaz Chowdhury. Ways of Protecting Plant Health. “The artwork shows how plant pests destroy our food. It also suggests some possible ways of protecting plant health. Good research can identify different features of pests and show what measures we can take accordingly. In addition, we can take protection and caution in seaports and airports, as we know that passengers and their luggage carry pests and insects from one country to another.”

Second Prize: Ages 5–9

Taarinee Gupta. Insects: Blessings or Curse. “In this painting, I have tried to show that insects are both a blessing as well as a curse.

Third Prize: Ages 5–9

Xiyan Qin. Bamboo locust, go fast. “One day, Panda Panpan was playing happily by the pond. Suddenly a group of terrible bamboo locusts appeared in the sky. These greedy insects almost ate up all the bamboo leaves. Panpan cried sadly looking at the gnawed bamboo leaves. Go away!”

First Prize: Ages 10–13

Shu-Yen (Coco) Yeh. AI-connected mini self-driving cars keep ecological vitality. “Due to climate change, travel and international trade, plant ecology is in danger more than ever! It is vital for all to recognize the problem and take actions to protect plants. As a student in love with science, I hope to design and make many AI-connected mini self-driving cars that constantly report threats (pests, diseases, fire), gather plant and ecological data in forests, and return samples to the lab for genetic analysis and archiving. If necessary, the AI system will be used to regenerate the forest. Make it ecologically vital!”

Second Prize: Ages 10–13

Kingston Sheng-Juei Tsai. Cicada. “The setting of the cicada has functions to prevent plants from getting hurt. First, using its eyes and satellites, it prevents the main plant from getting damaged by planting other plants that pests like more. For example, armyworm feeds on maize but also prefers rice. In this situation, it can plant rice next to the maize, so the armyworm won’t feed on the maize so much. Second, with the powerful lights from the head of the Cicada, it can shine light on the pests and the pests will possibly die. Third, it can create a high-pitched sound from its abdomen that prevents the breeding and laying of eggs. Fourth, the Cicada can educate people on how to plant different high-quality crops in less-developed countries. This setting of the Cicada creates a balance between plants and the eco-environment.”

Third Prize: Ages 10–13

Fernanda Rocío Zapata Gallardo. Keep calm and grow a bit. “My drawing is about a caregiver doing a daily review of plants in a greenhouse, while taking notes of their progress on a tablet. I took a literal and simple concept for my illustration regarding a graphical perspective of ‘Plant Health’.”

Neha Thekkumpurath - We all can be the plant health saviours

Rana Hassan - Polluted environment, clean environment

Sheha Thekkumpurath - Healthy plant, healthy planet

Atrin Afshari Tavana - Plant protection, world protection

Shreya V. Samudrala - Little guardians

Guste Cesnauskaite - Insect parasite

Riaan Mashruwala - Protecting plant health

Neha Thekkumpurath - We all can be the plant health saviours

Rana Hassan - Polluted environment, clean environment

Sheha Thekkumpurath - Healthy plant, healthy planet

Atrin Afshari Tavana - Plant protection, world protection

Shreya V. Samudrala - Little guardians

Guste Cesnauskaite - Insect parasite

Riaan Mashruwala - Protecting plant health

A video competition on the theme of plant health attracted submissions from around the world. The competition was sponsored by the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) and by European Phytosanitary Research Coordination (Euphresco). All video nominations can be seen on the Euphresco web page https://www.euphresco.net/contest/.

After qualifying videos were published on 1 February 2021, jury members individually scored the entries based on two criteria: communication and originality. Additional criteria, such as social media engagement and the age of the applicants, were considered independently.

Plant Health TV – Video Contest Jury

Anna Maria d’Onghia – CIHEAM (International)
Peter Lafontaine – Canadian Food Inspection Agency (Canada)
Chipiliro Kansilanga – Inter-African Phytosanitary Council (Cameroon)
Jo Luck – Plant Biosecurity Research Initiative (Australia)
Madeleine McMullen – European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (International)
Sabrine Nahdi – Kef Graduate School of Agriculture (Tunisia)
Kyu-Ock Yim – Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (Republic of Korea)
Baldissera Giovani – European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization–Euphresco (International)

First Prize: Sherry-Ann Brown

Sherry Ann Brown, from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of Jamaica.
Beating food scarcity: beet armyworm management in Jamaica.

The video highlights a significant pest, the beet armyworm, Spodoptera exigua, affecting the production of several crops in Jamaica. Research studies were conducted to better understand the pest’s biology and a number of the strategies employed in its management. These strategies include chemical and biological control methods as well as a pest forecasting system for early detection.

Second Runners-up: Richard Buggs and Kiril Sotirovski (tied)

Richard Buggs, from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Ash dieback: the devastating fungus.

Ash dieback is going to have a devastating effect on the British landscape. We are doing research to understand how variants in the DNA of ash trees give some of them resistance to ash dieback. We are also asking whether natural selection is already acting to generate resistant trees in nature. This research gives us optimism about the future of ash populations in Europe.

Kiril Sotirovski, rom the Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia.
Using a friendly virus to fight a deadly fungus.

Chestnut blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), is one of the deadliest plant diseases. In the 50 years following its discovery, the fungus killed about 4 billion American chestnut trees (Castanea dentata). The fungus is a threat for sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) throughout Europe as well. A virus that lives in the fungus can decrease its virulence and can be used to control chestnut blight.

Third Runners-up: Irene Cabal Blanco and Patrice Pitter (tied)

Irene Cabal Blanco, from Clear Detections, Netherlands.
The threats of Panama disease (Foc TR4) for banana cultivars.

The video is an introduction to the pest of Panama disease and the present methods to detect it.

Patrice Pitter, from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries of Jamaica.
Research rescuing Jamaica’s fine flavoured cocoa: frosty pod rot management

The video offers an insight into frosty pod rot disease with an overview about the disease in Jamaica, the associated symptoms, the spread, the impact, the current management practices and research activities geared at alleviating the prevalence of the disease in an effort to safeguard the country’s cocoa industry.