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Virus yellows is the biggest threat to sugar beet crops in northern Europe, and work is being carried out to develop new integrated pest management

"Working with plant breeders to identify tolerance and resistance to virus yellows is a major part of our efforts at the moment. "We are increasing those efforts, hand-inoculating almost 100,000 plants at two or three locations in East Anglia to help identify these future tolerant and resistant varieties. "We'll take the aphids out in batches and let them feed on plants in the field, then we treat the area to kill them after 48 hours so they don't spread the virus. "We can use drones and a range of different cameras to look at symptom development, in addition to ground observations. "The...