1977 - 1979. Senior International Development Officer, The Boots Company Ltd (Agrochemicals Division), Lenton Research Station, Nottingham.

Set up and headed a new Unit, with four graduates and secretarial support, planning and processing field evaluation of agricultural chemicals in many countries; collating registration dossiers, technical bulletins and sales documents; and providing technical support and advice for marketing staff. Personally responsible for liaison with the whole of Latin America. This involved visits (to Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador and Guatemala) to meet commercial collaborators, government authorities, etc., to discuss a comprehensive range of agrochemical applications, in many field and plantation crops; and providing trials protocols and analysing results, often submitted in Spanish. My work also included planning and executing successful on-farm field trials in Colombia, El Salvador and Sudan (each with some three months of in-country work); these led to market leader status for amitraz (Mitac®) as a control agent for whitefly pests.

The Unit coordinated the planning and processing of the field evaluation of agricultural chemicals in many countries. The results were analysed and collated for registration dossiers, technical bulletins and sales documents; and technical support and advice services were provided for company marketing staff. In addition to the insecticide/acaricide amitraz (MITAC®), the unit handled prochloraz (a newly discovered fungicide), dicloran (fungicide), benazolin and phenoxyalkanoic herbicides, and bronopol bactericide .

I personally coordinated the development work with amitraz, concentrating on its potential use in cotton crop protection, but also coordinating work in top fruit (against spider mites and pear psylla) and other horticultural uses. In cotton, I planned and personally carried out successful field trials programmes in El Salvador, Colombia and Sudan. Small scale trials, using motorised knapsack sprayers, and large scale trials with aerial application (fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters) using conventional and ULV techniques, were undertaken. Amitraz was tested alone or as a tank mixture with organophosphates (ethyl parathion, methyl parathion, dimethoate, sulprofos), carbamates (methomyl) or synthetic pyrethroids (permethrin, fenvalerate). The target pests in Latin America were principally the lepidopteran bollworms (Heliothis zea and H. virescens), loopers (Trichoplusia ni and Pseudoplusia ni) and armyworms (Spodoptera frugiperda and S. exigua). The principal activity of amitraz against these pests is as a neonaticide and studies of the hatching of marked eggs or egg masses were made, plus studies of spray droplet distribution. Other pests observed included the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis), spider mites (Tetranychus ludeni) and aphids (Aphis gossypii). One set of trials in Colombia included monitoring of biotic control agents, namely parasitic wasps (Trichogramma spp.). It was in the Sudan trials that the potential of amitraz for control of whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) was first demonstrated, other pests involved were the bollworms (H. armigera and Earias insulana).

PUBLICATIONS - note most restricted for commercial reasons

Personal Publications -
Technical Reports -
Taylor, B. (1977c) Evaluation of Mitac on cotton, 1977, II. Trials in El Salvador. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 35 pp.
Taylor, B., Bell, J.R. & Forsyth, R.J. (1978) Evaluation of Mitac on cotton, 1978. 1. Trials in Colombia. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 37 pp.
Taylor, B. & Burgess, J.P. (1978) Evaluation of Mitac on cotton, 1978. 4. Trials in Sudan. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 30 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979a) Mitac. Insecticide and acaricide for use in cotton. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 82 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979b) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Part I. General information. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 43 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979c) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Part I. General information. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 43 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979d) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Part II. For the control of pests of cotton in Latin America. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 11 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979e) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Parts IIA, IIB, IIC, IID, IIE & IIF, country reports. The Boots Company, Nottingham, total 74 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979f) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Part III. For the control of cotton pests in the U.S.A. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 14 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979g) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Part IV. For the control, of pests of cotton in the Old World. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 10 pp.
Taylor, B. (1979h) Mitac. Acaricide and insecticide. Technical Manual. Parts IVA, IVB, IVC, IVD & IVE, country reports. The Boots Company, Nottingham, total 29 pp.

Management & Commercial Documents -
Taylor, B. (1978a) Report on a visit to Turkey, 27th February-2nd March 1978. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 3 pp.
Taylor, B. (1978b) Report on a visit to South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia), 6th-22nd March 1978. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 51 pp.
Taylor, B. (1978c) Report on a visit to El Salvador and Guatemala, 24th-28th September 1978. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 5 pp.
Hale, C.J. & Taylor, B. (1978) Report on a visit to Colombia, September 1978. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 15 pp.

Scientific paper -
Taylor, B. (1997) Scouting in cotton IPM - a cautionary note and a peculiar observation. Antenna, 21, 14-18.

Team Publications - (restricted Technical Reports)
Bell, J.R. (1978) Evaluation of Mitac on cotton, 1978, 3. Trials in El Salvador. The Boots Company, Nottingham, 20pp.
Harris, R.G. (1979) Prochloraz fungicide. Technical Bulletin. First Edition. The Boots Company, Nottingham.

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Verification of my trials' results can be found in the summary of development work on amitraz in cotton by Peregrine¹. Curiously, however, my trials are not mentioned despite the fact that they predated those described by some 6-7 years (presumably, this reflects the company mergers and take-overs that led to amitraz presently being in the product portfolio of Schering AG). Stam et al.² report pesticide studies in Sudan which include an amitraz-endosulfan mixture applied to control a rampant outbreak of whitefly, against which clearly no other products were effective. Amitraz also is listed for whitefly and red spider mite control in a new review, by Hillocks³, of cotton pest management in Africa.

[¹ Peregrine, D.J. (1989). The role of amitraz in cotton pest control. In Pest management in cotton, Green, M.B. & Lyon, D.J. de B, Eds., Society of Chemical Industry. ж Stam, P.A., Abdelrahman, A.A. & Munir, B. (1994) Comparison of control action thresholds for Heliothis armigera, Bemisia tabaci and Aphis gossypii on cotton in the Sudan Gezira and Rahad Regions. Crop Protection, 13, 503-512. ³ Hillocks, R.J. (1995) Integrated management of insect pests, diseases and weeds of cotton in Africa. Integrated Pest Management Reviews, 1, 31-47.]

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