Research interests
Michelle specialises in the minimisation of pesticide use in fruit horticulture, improving pollination in fruit crops and incorporating modern fruit growing practices with Integrated Pest Management. The former includes research on improving pest monitoring by developing semiochemical manipulation of insects, optimising the use of biological control agents and enhancing and fostering local landscape ecology to provide the ecosystem service of pest control.
Her pollination research focuses on the delivery of insect pollinators to fruit crops through identification of key species and enhancement of habitat in and around crops, including wildflower and nesting resource establishment. She leads research on invasive pest species, such as, Drosophila suzukii, Halyomorpha halys and Anthonomus sp. and is a taxonomic specialist of Collembola, Araneae and fruit crop fauna.
She communicates research to growers and agronomists and presents papers at national and international conferences. She also authors best practice guidelines and factsheets for pest control in fruit crops and edits books and papers in specialist areas of fruit entomology and is Convenor of the Expert Group: "Integrated Protection of Fruit Crops"
Research projects
- AgroBioCONNECT – ERA-NET (2023-2026) Connections in the landscape. Role of landscape complexity in agroecosystem sustainability
- BBSRC Feasibility (2023-25) Innovative Push-Pull Control of Spotted Wing Drosophila, an Invasive Pest of Fruit Crops (SWDP-P)
- British Apples and Pears Ltd. (2023) Opportunities for Integrated Pest and Disease Management in Apples and Pears: Tackling British Apple and Pears Ltd. Priorities: PAPPLe
- Farming Innovation Programme TFP Follow-on Funding (2024) Optimising deployment of sterile insect technique to control spotted wing drosophila in blackberries: Black-Spot
- Farming Innovation Programme TFP Follow-on Funding (2024) Novel attract and kill strategies for control of UK fruit crop pests: PROBANDZ
- Growing Kent and Medway (2024) Augmentoria to boost natural biological control
- Growing Kent and Medway: prototyping and demonstrator fund (2024) MiDeVa
Publications
Recent publications
- Fraser, I., Fountain, M., & Holland, J. (2024). Crop Production, the Pollinator Deficit and Land Use Management: UK Farm Level Survey Results. Bio-Based and Applied Economics.
- Mateos-Fierro Z, Garratt MP, Fountain MT, Ashbrook K, Westbury DB (2024) Wildflower strips in polytunnel cherry orchard alleyways support pest regulation services but do not counteract edge effects on pollination services. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 8 – 2024.
- Reeves, L.A., Garratt, M.P.D., Fountain, M.T. et al. A whole ecosystem approach to pear psyllid (Cacopsylla pyri) management in a changing climate. J Pest Sci (2024).
- Conroy C, Fountain MT, Whitfield EC, Hall DR, Farman D, Bray DP (2024) Methyl N,N-dimethylanthranilate and ethyl propionate: repellents effective against spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii. Pest Management Science.
- Howard C; Fountain M; Brittain C; Burgess P; Garratt M (2024) Perennial flower margins reduce orchard fruit damage by rosy apple aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea (Homoptera: Aphididae). Journal of Applied Ecology.