CENTRAL BICOL STATE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE

San Jose, Pili Camarines Sur

CROP PROTECTION 2
Approaches and Practices in Pest Management
(Lecture Materials)

CHAPTER 1

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TOPICS COVERED:
1. THE CONCEPT OF INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT (IPM OR PEST
CONTROL)
a. The current concept of IPM
b. Historical Trend in IPM
2. Economic Concepts
3. Ecological Concepts
4. Human Behaviour and Decision-Making Concepts

Introduction

Agricultural pests are organisms that damage or compete with a crop to reduce
yield or quality. Some examples of this are: y Insects, y Disease causing organisms, y
Weeds, y Rodents, and y Birds. If these pests are not effectively managed or controlled,
they can cause significant losses. While estimates show average losses of 30 – 40%,
complete crop loss can occur, especially for smallholder farmers in low income
countries, as they may lack knowledge or lack effective control options. Pests need to
be managed to protect livelihoods. As agronomists and pest management experts, you
need to help farmers understand that pests can economically impact their farms and
thus need to be managed, and then explain how to manage pests without creating
unnecessary risk to human health and the environment. You should be able to explain
why they should adopt IPM.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a common-sense approach that provides
an effective species management framework. IPM practices reduce dependency upon
toxic pesticides, subsequently mitigating exposure to these hazardous chemicals. IPM,
when practiced proficiently, is truly a method of ecosystem stewardship that combines
cultural, physical and biological methods to keep the populations of undesirable species
in balance at tolerable levels. Ideally, IPM involves using chemical control methods only
as a last resort and when used, incorporating the least-toxic control method available
after exhausting all possible alternatives. Unfortunately, the concept of IPM has often
become elusive in regulatory language and adulterated in practice.

IPM is an ecologically based management. This approach value the presence of non-
target species, predators and beneficial organisms. It aims to reduce or suppress the
number of pests in the field or site. It does not eliminate or kill all pest in an area.

Learning Objectives
At the end of the discussion the students must be able
to:

1. Define the meaning of IPM

2. Explain the current concepts in IPM
3. Generalize the historical development of IPM
4. Relate IPM concept to the Pest Management
practices of modern agriculture
5. Compare and contrast the various concepts 2 | P a gine
pest management emphasizing its ecological
Crop Protection 2- Approaches and Practices in Pest Management
impact.
Pre-Assessment
Instruction: Answer the following questions given below. This will test you prior
knowledge about the lesson.

1. What is a pest?
2. Write down 10 organisms that you consider to be a pest. These can be animals,
insects, plants or plant diseases that affect you, your home, your yard or the
school
3. What do you think people in medieval times do to control pest?
4. Give your opinion about Integrated Pest Management.

CONTENT FOCUS

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Definition of terms and their Implication
• Pesticides- are materials or substances used to kill pests.
Pesticides includes: insecticides, fungicides, bactericides, herbicides,
mollusicides, etc.
nematicides and rodenticides.
• Insecticides- are any substance used to kill insects. However, insecticides also
kill or affect other organisms, man, and animals.
• Ecosystem- ffunctionally independent unit in which there is an intricate &
interdependent among the components” Ex: Pond, River, Forest, tree, desert.
• Agro-ecosystem- is an agricultural area sufficiently large to permit long-term
interactions of all the living organisms in their non-living environment.
• Insect Control -is the performance of any practice that prevents further increase
in insect pest population growth or that suppresses or reduces existing insect
pest population. To many, insect control denotes chemical control.

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  Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
A comprehensive approach to pest control that uses a combined means to
reduce the status of pests to tolerable levels while maintaining a quality
environment.”
A method of controlling pest in an economically efficient and
ecologically sound manner. It utilizes all suitable techniques either to
reduce pest population and maintain them at level below those causing
economic injury or to manipulate the population so that they are prevented
from causing injury. IPM strives to prevent the needless destruction of the
environment and human health.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has emerged as a way towards maintaining or

increasing agricultural productivity without over-reliance on synthetic chemical
pesticides. IPM generally focus on minimizing losses to pests, the dangers of extensive
pesticide use, and agricultural sustainability. Different organizations may put more or
less emphasis on the use of chemical pesticides in their interpretations of the concept.

Key points of IPM (what constitutes IPM or Integrated Pest Management). Let’s talk about
those three words:

INTEGRATION is the harmonious use of multiple methods to control single pests or pest
complexes. Focus on interactions of pests, crops, the environment, and various control
methods. This approach considers all available tactics and how these tactics fit with other
agricultural practice used.

PEST is any organism that is detrimental to humans and it includes invertebrates (insects,
mites, spiders, etc.), vertebrates (ground squirrels, mice, rabbits, birds, etc.), weeds, and
pathogens (microorganisms that cause plant diseases). These organisms’ conflicts with
our profit, health, or convenience.
If a species does not exist in numbers that seriously affect these factors, it is not
considered as pest.

MANAGEMENT a way to keep pests below the levels where they can cause economic
damage. Management does not mean eradicating pests. It means tactics that are effective
and economical, and that keep environment damage to a minimum.

Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is managing crops using many tactics to keep pest
levels below an economic threshold.

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 IPM has a broad application:
- Integrates management of all pests.
- Holistic approach, ecologically based.
- Can be applied to any ecosystem.

What does IPM integrate?

-Integrates multiple pest management tactics:

-Integrates management of multiple pests:

Reduces pest to tolerable levels

-does not emphasize pest eradication or elimination.
Incorporates economic sustainability
-Economic Threshold Level (ETL)
-Economic Injury Level (EIL)
Incorporates environmental and social concerns

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IPM is a multidisciplinary endeavor

Agronomy (crop and soil science)

Entomology (insects: pests and beneficial)

Plant pathology (plant diseases)

Economics (decision-making)

Agricultural Engineering (machinery, grain handling, etc.)

Climatology (weather trends and effects)

IPM is a multidisciplinary endeavor. It takes from branches of crop science and then
assembles information from the following disciplines:
Agronomy—understanding about the crop and the soils and landscape that the
crop will grow on.

Entomology—understanding insects and mites, including both pests and

beneficial insects that affect a specific crop.

Plant pathology—understanding the disease-causing microorganisms that affect

crops. There are also beneficial microorganisms, including “entomopathic”
organisms that attack insects and other invertebrates (plant pathologists and
entomologists work together on these) and nitrogen-fixing bacteria that infect
soybean and other legume roots.

Economics is basically making decisions that generate profit to the operator

when compared with other decisions.

Agricultural Engineering usually addresses how we deliver management tactics

to the field. Ag engineers work with machinery, grain handling equipment, soil
sampling equipment, and operator safety issues that allow for more effective
management practices.

Climatology is important to understand weather trends including rainfall, wind,

and temperature that affect both crop and pest development. “Cold blooded”
organisms (both crops and most pests) develop based on heat, water, solar
radiation, etc. and understanding weather is a key component of understanding
how a pest can cause damage to a crop.

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PRINCIPLES AND CONCEPTS
The first principle you must understand is that and effective
implementation of IPM is based on the agro-ecosystem and agroecology. This is
an important part of maintaining healthy soil and growing a healthy crop with plant that
is strong and vigorous and therefore will be less affected by pest attack. Pest
management actions or pest control interventions should consider the system as a
whole, or they can have unexpected and undesirable results.

The second principle is that pests do not need to be completely eradicated.

Instead, the aim is to keep the pest population at a tolerable level, which is where
the cost of the pests’ impact on yield or quality is less than the cost of controlling
the pest. This level is called the economic threshold and will be explained in detail later.
This level is complicated by the fact that some early season damage to a crop can be
compensated for by later growth. Another complication is that some crops, like fruit
crops, have a maximum potential yield, which means that excess fruit may later be shed,
so some damage to a crop may result in a higher yield. An example of this is leaf
damage to cotton. You must also take the positive impact of beneficial organisms into
account when determining a threshold. Strategies that achieve unnecessarily high
levels of control (mainly using chemical pesticides) can cause serious agro-biological
problems that can make the pest situation worse.
The third principle is that IPM focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of
natural control mechanisms to regulate pest populations. Chemical pesticides and
other tactics are used only when natural control fails. Unnecessary interventions can
disrupt natural control mechanisms, which can increase pest problems. These three
principles are why IPM has been described as a holistic approach. IPM is also
described as a knowledge-intensive approach. While this is true, the knowledge is
readily available from: y Researchers, y Private and public extension agents, y On-line
resources and y Farmers. The agroecosystem and the impacts of management actions
on it vary with factors such as topography, climate and soil type and conditions. There is
no one size fits all approach to IPM. This module describes the underlying principles of
IPM, but the final approaches and actions taken must be tailored according to local
context, knowledge and experience. The IPM strategy adopted must be cost effective
and effectively manage pest populations

Photo from Garden Tech

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 The Integrated Pest Management Strategy, Tactics and Goal

The goal of integrated pest management is

not to eliminate all pests; some pests are
tolerable and essential so that their natural
enemies remain in the crop.

- To reduce pest populations to less

than damaging numbers.

Integrated Pest Management Approaches

(PAMS)

• Prevention- is the practice of keeping a pest population from infesting a field or

site, and should be the first line of defense. It includes such tactics as using pest-
free seeds and transplants, preventing weeds from reproducing, irrigation
scheduling to avoid situations conducive to disease development, cleaning tillage
and harvesting equipment between fields or operations, using field sanitation
procedures, and eliminating alternate hosts or sites for insect pests and disease
organisms.

• Avoidance- may be practiced when pest populations exist in a field or site but
the impact of the pest on the crop can be avoided through some cultural practice.
Examples of avoidance tactics include crop rotation such that the crop of choice
is not a host for the pest, choosing cultivars with genetic resistance to pests,
using trap crops and simply not planting certain areas of fields where pest
populations are likely to cause crop failure.

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 • Monitoring and proper identification of pests through surveys or scouting
programs, including trapping, weather monitoring and soil testing where
appropriate, should be performed as the basis for suppression activities. Records
should be kept of pest incidence and distribution for each field or site.

• Suppression of pest populations may become necessary to avoid economic loss

if prevention and avoidance tactics are not successful. Suppressive tactics may
include cultural practices

VARIOUS CONTROL METHODS

COMPONENTS OF AN INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT

1.Identify pests, their hosts and beneficial organisms before taking action.
- The cause of the problem and associated plant or animal species must be correctly
identified. For many plant problems, the damage is not caused by insects! If you can't
find a pest, consider other causes, including abiotic (non-living) disorders, such as
sunscald, wind or cold damage, inadequate moisture, etc.

2.Establish monitoring guidelines for each pest species.

Routine monitoring of both pests and natural enemies, also known as beneficial
organisms, is an important part of IPM. Methods of monitoring include visual inspection,
pheromone and sticky traps, and sweep nets. Document and track both pest and

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beneficial organism population numbers. The ratio of natural enemies (usually insects)
to pests should be taken into account before a pesticide is applied.

3.Establish an action threshold for the pest.

- A fundamental concept of IPM is that a certain number of individual pests
can and should be tolerated. Farmers start by determining whether the pest
will cause unacceptable damage to the value of their crop. What will happen if
no action is taken? The action threshold in crop production is generally based
on economics. The economic threshold is defined as the pest population level
that produces damage equal to the cost of preventing damage by controlling
the pest. The threshold is the pest density, or population level, at which
management should occur. Homeowners may be more concerned about the
appearance of their landscape and may set an aesthetic threshold, rather than
one based on economics.

4.Evaluate and implement control tactics.

- Select tactics that will be most effective, economical and have least impact
on non-target species and the environment. Select methods that will impact
beneficial organisms as little as possible while suppressing the pest. If a
pesticide is one of the selected management tools, beneficial enemies
(usually insects) will likely also be killed.

5. Monitor, evaluate and document the results.

- This allows you to make adjustments to improve the effectiveness of future
pest management strategies. Keep records to help you determine what
worked well, and what to change next year.

Quantitative Bases of Insect Pest Control:

1.Economic Damage (ED)

- occurs when the cost of preventable crop damage exceeds the cost of control.
2. Economic threshold level (ETL)
- density at which control method should be applied to prevent the pest status
from reaching the economic injury level
3. Economic Injury Level (EIL)
- lowest population level that will cause economic damage

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 The demands of a growing world
population for food and fiber require
farmers to produce more crops on existing
farmland. To increase these yields
requires continuous improvement of
agricultural technologies to minimize crop
losses. The challenge is to do this while
protecting the environment.

IPM is a big part of the solution.

Increasingly it is being adopted in both
developed and developing countries for
long term, sustainable agriculture that
achieves adequate, safe and quality food
production, improves farmer livelihoods
and conserves non-renewable resources.

Why Practice IPM?

Why have pest managers shifted to IPM when chemical pesticides so often succeed at
controlling pests? There are many reasons to broaden pest management beyond the
use of chemicals.

IPM HELPS TO KEEP A BALANCED ECOSYSTEM. Every ecosystem, made

up of living things and their non-living environment, has a balance; the actions of
one kind of organism in the ecosystem can change this balance, destroying
certain species and allowing other species (sometimes pests themselves) to
dominate. Pesticides can kill beneficial insects

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 that consume pests, leaving few natural mechanisms of pest control.

PESTECIDES CAN BE INEFFECTIVE - chemical pesticides are not always

effective. Pest can become resistant to pesticides.
Promotes healthy environment

References:
https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=2626

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