Institute of Plant Protection - National Research Institute

The Institute of Plant Protection ‒ National Research Institute (IPP – NRI) is a state, scientific and research institution supervised by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, established on 24 January 1951. The Institute performs multi-dimensional research in the scope of plant protection and with a special consideration of food and agricultural environment safety and preservation of biodiversity.

The Institute of Plant Protection – NRI performs their scientific and research tasks within:

• statutory research financed by the Ministry of Education and Science,
• special-purpose subsidy financed by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development,
• national and foreign projects.

The services are delivered nationally: in the headquarters of the IPP – NRI situated in Poznań, in its branch office in Sośnicowice, and in three regional experiment stations: in Białystok, Toruń and Rzeszów.

Main areas of the scientific and research activities of the Institute of Plant Protection ‒ NRI:

• Analysis of the biology, ecology and harmfulness of pests and of the methods of preventing their occurrence in order to work out systems supportive of decisions about the necessity to perform treatment. Development of levels of harmfulness of economically significant pests and strategies of prevention of the resistance of pests, pathogens and weeds against plant protection products.
• Integration of the method of agricultural crops protection (IPM) against pests ‒ development of the strategy of crops protection in order to obtain high quality products with great nutritional value and to reduce pesticide indices.
• Analysis of the influence of the plant protection programmes on environment, biodiversity and the agricultural production efficiency.
• Monitoring and research on the safety of plant production, water and soil in order to protect them from the consequences of using plant protection products (residues of plant protection products, mycotoxins).
• Ecological agriculture – looking for natural plant protection agents, growth biostimulants, plant growth promoting microorganisms.
• Precision agriculture – gaining of technical data from drones.
• Using the methods of molecular biology in different areas, among others in the diagnostics of pests and in the analysis of the development of resistance mechanisms against plant protection products.

In the last years of the activities of IPP – NRI, there has been a significant increase of the number of research cases on the new diagnostics methods in plant protection with the application of modern tools of molecular biology. The results of these activities are for example:

• progress in the implementation and publishing activities,
• improvement of the qualifications and education of the new scientific and research personnel,
• increase of the number of registered patents.