Integrated pest management (IPM), also known as integrated pest control (IPC) is a broad-based approach that integrates both chemical and non-chemical practices for economic control of pests. IPM aims to suppress pest populations below the economic injury level (EIL). The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization defines IPM as "the careful consideration of all available pest control techniques and subsequent integration of appropriate measures that discourage the development of pest populations and keep pesticides and other interventions to levels that are economically justified and reduce or minimize risks to human health and the environment. IPM emphasizes the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro-ecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms." [1] Entomologists and ecologists have urged the adoption of IPM pest control since the 1970s. [2] IPM is a safer pest control framework than reliance on the use of chemical pesticides, mitigating risks such as: insecticide-induced resurgence, pesticide resistance and (especially food) crop residues. [3]
The introduction and spread of invasive species can also be managed with IPM by reducing risks while maximizing benefits and reducing costs. [4] [5] [6]
Shortly after World War II, when synthetic insecticides became widely available, entomologists in California developed the concept of "supervised insect control". [7] Around the same time, entomologists in the US Cotton Belt were advocating a similar approach. Under this scheme, insect control was "supervised" by qualified entomologists and insecticide applications were based on conclusions reached from periodic monitoring of pest and natural-enemy populations. This was viewed as an alternative to calendar-based programs. Supervised control was based on knowledge of the ecology and analysis of projected trends in pest and natural-enemy populations.[ citation needed ]
Supervised control formed much of the conceptual basis for the "integrated control" that University of California entomologists articulated in the 1950s. Integrated control sought to identify the best mix of chemical and biological controls for a given insect pest. Chemical insecticides were to be used in the manner least disruptive to biological control. The term "integrated" was thus synonymous with "compatible." Chemical controls were to be applied only after regular monitoring indicated that a pest population had reached a level that required treatment (the economic threshold) to prevent the population from reaching a level at which economic losses would exceed the cost of the control measures (the economic injury level).[ citation needed ]
IPM extended the concept of integrated control to all classes of pests and was expanded to include all tactics. Controls such as pesticides were to be applied as in integrated control, but these now had to be compatible with tactics for all classes of pests. Other tactics, such as host-plant resistance and cultural manipulations, became part of the IPM framework. IPM combined entomologists, plant pathologists, nematologists and weed scientists.
In the United States, IPM was formulated into national policy in February 1972 when President Richard Nixon directed federal agencies to take steps to advance the application of IPM in all relevant sectors. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter established an interagency IPM Coordinating Committee to ensure development and implementation of IPM practices. [8]
Perry Adkisson and Ray F. Smith received the 1997 World Food Prize for encouraging the use of IPM. [9]
IPM is used in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, human habitations, preventive conservation of cultural property and general pest control, including structural pest management, turf pest management and ornamental pest management. IPM practices help to prevent and slow the development of resistance, known as resistance management. [10] [11] [12]
An American IPM system is designed around six basic components: [13]
An IPM regime can be simple or sophisticated. Historically, the main focus of IPM programmes was on agricultural insect pests. [17] Although originally developed for agricultural pest management, IPM programmes are now developed to encompass diseases, weeds and other pests that interfere with management objectives for sites such as residential and commercial structures, lawn and turf areas, and home and community gardens. Predictive models have proved to be suitable tools supporting the implementation of IPM programmes. [18]
IPM is the selection and [18] use of pest control actions that will ensure favourable economic condition, ecological and social consequences [19] and is applicable to most agricultural, public health and amenity pest management situations. The IPM process starts with monitoring, which includes inspection and identification, followed by the establishment of economic injury levels.The economic injury levels set the economic threshold level. Economic Injury level is the pest population level at which crop damage exceeds the cost of treatment of pest. [20] This can also be an action threshold level for determining an unacceptable level that is not tied to economic injury. Action thresholds are more common in structural pest management and economic injury levels in classic agricultural pest management. An example of an action threshold is one fly in a hospital operating room is not acceptable, but one fly in a pet kennel would be acceptable. Once a threshold has been crossed by the pest population action steps need to be taken to reduce and control the pest. Integrated pest management employs a variety of actions including cultural controls such as physical barriers, biological controls such as adding and conserving natural predators and enemies of the pest, and finally chemical controls or pesticides. Reliance on knowledge, experience, observation and integration of multiple techniques makes IPM appropriate for organic farming (excluding synthetic pesticides). These may or may not include materials listed on the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) [21] Although the pesticides and particularly insecticides used in organic farming and organic gardening are generally safer than synthetic pesticides, they are not always more safe or environmentally friendly than synthetic pesticides and can cause harm. [22] For conventional farms IPM can reduce human and environmental exposure to hazardous chemicals, and potentially lower overall costs.[ citation needed ]
Risk assessment usually includes four issues: 1) characterization of biological control agents, 2) health risks, 3) environmental risks and 4) efficacy. [23]
Mistaken identification of a pest may result in ineffective actions. E.g., plant damage due to over-watering could be mistaken for fungal infection, since many fungal and viral infections arise under moist conditions.
Monitoring begins immediately, before the pest's activity becomes significant. Monitoring of agricultural pests includes tracking soil/planting media fertility and water quality. Overall plant health and resistance to pests is greatly influenced by pH, alkalinity, of dissolved mineral and oxygen reduction potential. Many diseases are waterborne, spread directly by irrigation water and indirectly by splashing.
Once the pest is known, knowledge of its lifecycle provides the optimal intervention points. [24] For example, weeds reproducing from last year's seed can be prevented with mulches and pre-emergent herbicide.[ citation needed ]
Pest-tolerant crops such as soybeans may not warrant interventions unless the pests are numerous or rapidly increasing. Intervention is warranted if the expected cost of damage by the pest is more than the cost of control. Health hazards may require intervention that is not warranted by economic considerations.[ citation needed ]
Specific sites may also have varying requirements. E.g., white clover may be acceptable on the sides of a tee box on a golf course, but unacceptable in the fairway where it could confuse the field of play. [25]
Possible interventions include mechanical/physical, cultural, biological and chemical. Mechanical/physical controls include picking pests off plants, or using netting or other material to exclude pests such as birds from grapes or rodents from structures. Cultural controls include keeping an area free of conducive conditions by removing waste or diseased plants, flooding, sanding, and the use of disease-resistant crop varieties. [19] Biological controls are numerous. They include: conservation of natural predators or augmentation of natural predators, sterile insect technique (SIT). [26]
Augmentation, inoculative release and inundative release are different methods of biological control that affect the target pest in different ways. Augmentative control includes the periodic introduction of predators. [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] With inundative release, predators are collected, mass-reared and periodically released in large numbers into the pest area. [32] [33] [34] This is used for an immediate reduction in host populations, generally for annual crops, but is not suitable for long run use. [35] With inoculative release a limited number of beneficial organisms are introduced at the start of the growing season. This strategy offers long term control as the organism's progeny affect pest populations throughout the season and is common in orchards. [35] [36] With seasonal inoculative release the beneficials are collected, mass-reared and released seasonally to maintain the beneficial population. This is commonly used in greenhouses. [36] In America and other western countries, inundative releases are predominant, while Asia and the eastern Europe more commonly use inoculation and occasional introductions. [35]
The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an area-wide IPM program that introduces sterile male pests into the pest population to trick females into (unsuccessful) breeding encounters, providing a form of birth control and reducing reproduction rates. [26] The biological controls mentioned above only appropriate in extreme cases, because in the introduction of new species, or supplementation of naturally occurring species can have detrimental ecosystem effects. Biological controls can be used to stop invasive species or pests, but they can become an introduction path for new pests. [37]
Chemical controls include horticultural oils or the application of insecticides and herbicides. A green pest management IPM program uses pesticides derived from plants, such as botanicals, or other naturally occurring materials.
Pesticides can be classified by their modes of action. Rotating among materials with different modes of action minimizes pest resistance. [19]
Evaluation is the process of assessing whether the intervention was effective, whether it produced unacceptable side effects, whether to continue, revise or abandon the program. [38]
The Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s introduced sturdier plants that could support the heavier grain loads resulting from intensive fertilizer use. Pesticide imports by 11 Southeast Asian countries grew nearly sevenfold in value between 1990 and 2010, according to FAO statistics, with disastrous results. Rice farmers become accustomed to spraying soon after planting, triggered by signs of the leaf folder moth, which appears early in the growing season. It causes only superficial damage and doesn't reduce yields. In 1986, Indonesia banned 57 pesticides and completely stopped subsidizing their use. Progress was reversed in the 2000s, when growing production capacity, particularly in China, reduced prices. Rice production in Asia more than doubled. But it left farmers believing more is better—whether it's seed, fertilizer, or pesticides. [39]
The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, the farmers' main target, has become increasingly resistant. Since 2008, outbreaks have devastated rice harvests throughout Asia, but not in the Mekong Delta. Reduced spraying allowed natural predators to neutralize planthoppers in Vietnam. In 2010 and 2011, massive planthopper outbreaks hit 400,000 hectares of Thai rice fields, causing losses of about $64 million. The Thai government is now pushing the "no spray in the first 40 days" approach. [39]
By contrast early spraying kills frogs, spiders, wasps and dragonflies that prey on the later-arriving and dangerous planthopper and produced resistant strains. Planthoppers now require pesticide doses 500 times greater than originally. Overuse indiscriminately kills beneficial insects and decimates bird and amphibian populations. Pesticides are suspected of harming human health and became a common means for rural Asians to commit suicide. [39]
In 2001, scientists challenged 950 Vietnamese farmers to try IPM. In one plot, each farmer grew rice using their usual amounts of seed and fertilizer, applying pesticide as they chose. In a nearby plot, less seed and fertilizer were used and no pesticides were applied for 40 days after planting. Yields from the experimental plots was as good or better and costs were lower, generating 8% to 10% more net income. The experiment led to the "three reductions, three gains" campaign, claiming that cutting the use of seed, fertilizer and pesticide would boost yield, quality and income. Posters, leaflets, TV commercials and a 2004 radio soap opera that featured a rice farmer who gradually accepted the changes. It didn't hurt that a 2006 planthopper outbreak hit farmers using insecticides harder than those who didn't. Mekong Delta farmers cut insecticide spraying from five times per crop cycle to zero to one.[ citation needed ]
The Plant Protection Center and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have been encouraging farmers to grow flowers, okra and beans on rice paddy banks, instead of stripping vegetation, as was typical. The plants attract bees and a tiny wasp that eats planthopper eggs, while the vegetables diversify farm incomes. [39]
Agriculture companies offer bundles of pesticides with seeds and fertilizer, with incentives for volume purchases. A proposed law in Vietnam requires licensing pesticide dealers and government approval of advertisements to prevent exaggerated claims. Insecticides that target other pests, such as Scirpophaga incertulas (stem borer), the larvae of moth species that feed on rice plants allegedly yield gains of 21% with proper use. [39]
Pesticides are substances that are used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others. The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all pesticide use globally. Most pesticides are used as plant protection products, which in general protect plants from weeds, fungi, or insects. In general, a pesticide is a chemical or biological agent that deters, incapacitates, kills, or otherwise discourages pests. Target pests can include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms), and microbes that destroy property, cause nuisance, or spread disease, or are disease vectors. Along with these benefits, pesticides also have drawbacks, such as potential toxicity to humans and other species.
Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Acaricides, which kill mites and ticks, are not strictly insecticides, but are usually classified together with insecticides. The major use of Insecticides is agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden, industrial buildings, vector control and control of insect parasites of animals and humans. Insecticides are claimed to be a major factor behind the increase in the 20th-century's agricultural productivity. Nearly all insecticides have the potential to significantly alter ecosystems; many are toxic to humans and/or animals; some become concentrated as they spread along the food chain.
Biological control or biocontrol is a method of controlling pests, whether pest animals such as insects and mites, weeds, or pathogens affecting animals or plants by using other organisms. It relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or other natural mechanisms, but typically also involves an active human management role. It can be an important component of integrated pest management (IPM) programs.
Pesticide resistance describes the decreased susceptibility of a pest population to a pesticide that was previously effective at controlling the pest. Pest species evolve pesticide resistance via natural selection: the most resistant specimens survive and pass on their acquired heritable changes traits to their offspring. If a pest has resistance then that will reduce the pesticide's efficacy – efficacy and resistance are inversely related.
Pest control is the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest; such as any animal, plant or fungus that impacts adversely on human activities or environment. The human response depends on the importance of the damage done and will range from tolerance, through deterrence and management, to attempts to completely eradicate the pest. Pest control measures may be performed as part of an integrated pest management strategy.
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation.
The silverleaf whitefly is one of several species of whitefly that are currently important agricultural pests. A review in 2011 concluded that the silverleaf whitefly is actually a species complex containing at least 40 morphologically indistinguishable species.
A biopesticide is a biological substance or organism that damages, kills, or repels organisms seen as pests. Biological pest management intervention involves predatory, parasitic, or chemical relationships.
Non-pesticidal Management (NPM) describes various pest-control techniques which do not rely on pesticides. It is used in organic production of foodstuff, as well as in other situations in which the introduction of toxins is undesirable. Instead of the use of synthetic toxins, pest control is achieved by biological means.
The brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens (Stål) is a planthopper species that feeds on rice plants. These insects are among the most important pests of rice, which is the major staple crop for about half the world's population. They damage rice directly through feeding and also by transmitting two viruses, rice ragged stunt virus and rice grassy stunt virus. Up to 60% yield loss is common in susceptible rice cultivars attacked by the insect. The BPH is distributed throughout Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, North and South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Their alternative host plant other than rice is Leersia hexandra.
Forest integrated pest management or Forest IPM is the practice of monitoring and managing pest and environmental information with pest control methods to prevent pest damage to forests and forest habitats by the most economical means.
Bt cotton is a genetically modified pest resistant plant cotton variety that produces an insecticide to combat bollworm.
The diamondback moth, sometimes called the cabbage moth, is a moth species of the family Plutellidae and genus Plutella. The small, grayish-brown moth sometimes has a cream-colored band that forms a diamond along its back. The species may have originated in Europe, South Africa, or the Mediterranean region, but it has now spread worldwide.
Pesticide application refers to the practical way in which pesticides are delivered to their biological targets. Public concern about the use of pesticides has highlighted the need to make this process as efficient as possible, in order to minimise their release into the environment and human exposure. The practice of pest management by the rational application of pesticides is supremely multi-disciplinary, combining many aspects of biology and chemistry with: agronomy, engineering, meteorology, socio-economics and public health, together with newer disciplines such as biotechnology and information science.
The environmental effects of pesticides describe the broad series of consequences of using pesticides. The unintended consequences of pesticides is one of the main drivers of the negative impact of modern industrial agriculture on the environment. Pesticides, because they are toxic chemicals meant to kill pest species, can affect non-target species, such as plants, animals and humans. Over 98% of sprayed insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, because they are sprayed or spread across entire agricultural fields. Other agrochemicals, such as fertilizers, can also have negative effects on the environment.
Cnaphalocrocis medinalis, the rice leafroller, is a species of moth of the family Crambidae. It is found in south-east Asia, including Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and most of Australia.
The International Organization for Biological and Integrated Control (IOBC), is an organization, affiliated with the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), organised to promote and study biological pest control, integrated pest management (IPM) and integrated production.
Rhopalosiphum rufiabdominale, the rice root aphid or red rice root aphid, is a sap-sucking insect pest with a wide host range and a global distribution. As a member of the superfamily Aphidoidea, it is one of 16 species of the genus Rhopalosiphum. Adults and nymphs are soft-bodied and usually dark green with brown, red, or yellow tones. Like all aphids, reproduction is sexual and asexual, depending on the environmental conditions and host plant. Rice root aphids cause injury to external plant parts, namely the roots or stem, by feeding on plant sap and vector several important plant viruses. The hosts of this pest extend across multiple plant families with most belonging to Rosaceae, Poaceae, and Solanaceae. R. rufiabdominale is universally associated with Prunus species but also infests various field crops, greenhouse vegetables, cannabis, and other ornamental plants. While this aphid originates from east Asia, it spans nearly every continent. Dispersal is particularly widespread across the United States, India, and Australia, with crop damage documented in multiple instances, although economic losses are primarily associated with Japanese rice crops. Nonetheless, it remains a pest of serious concern due to its high mobility, discrete habitat, and adaptive plasticity, giving it the rightful reputation as a successful invader.
Trichogramma japonicum is a minute wasp parasitoid from the Trichogrammatidae family in the order Hymenoptera. T. japonicum parasitizes the eggs of many pest species, especially Lepidoptera found in many monocultures. They are entomophagous parasitoids that deposit their eggs inside the host species' egg, consuming the host egg material and emerging from the egg once development is complete. T. japonicum can be found naturally in rice ecosystems, but are dispersed commercially to many monocultures as a biological control. The mitochondrial genomes of T. japonicum are significantly rearranged when comparing it to related insects.
Pesticide induced resurgence, often shortened to resurgence in pest management contexts, can be described as a constraint of pesticide use, by which they fail to control pests such as insects and spider mites: instead ‘flaring up’ populations that may have been of minor importance. Although there are more than one mechanisms by which this takes place, mortality of natural enemies following the use of broad-spectrum insecticides and acaricides is often implicated. This is sometimes called the “pesticide treadmill”: a term coined by Robert van den Bosch to describe a self-reinforcing over-dependence on agrochemicals and inimical to natural biological controls. Notable examples include the flare-up of rice brown planthopper populations, following over-use of broad-spectrum inscticides.