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Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Region XII
Division of Sarangani
South Malungon District
SAN ROQUE NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL

Student Name:______________________________________________________________
Grade Level: 12
Section: MAGNO & SARDIDO
Subject: Pest Management (Vegetables) PMV
Lesson No.: 1 (PMV12_Q2M1)

I. Lesson Objectives:
1. Define what cultural control method is.
2. Identify the various cultural control strategies.
3. Identify the various advantages and disadvantages of cultural control methods.

II. The Lesson for the Week: CULTURAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

1. Cultural control strategies

2. Things should be considered in Cultural Control Methods
3. Factors to be consider in selecting site

CULTURAL CONTROL METHOD

 Are the oldest pest control method practices that had used to manage pest population.
 Rapidly abandoned or de-emphasized
 Preventative rather than curative (dependent on long-range planning)
 Poorly understood.
 Employ practices that make the environment less attractive to pests and less favorable
for their survival, dispersal, growth, and reproduction, and that promote the pest’s
natural controls.
 The objective is to achieve reduction in pest numbers, either below economic injury
levels, or sufficiently to allow natural or biological controls to take effect.
 Cultural control is to alter the environment, the condition of the host, or the behavior of
the pest to prevent or suppress an infestation.
 It disrupts the normal relationship between the pest and the host and makes the pest
less likely to survive, grow, or reproduce.
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 In agricultural crops, crop rotation, selection of crop plant varieties, timing of planting
and harvesting, irrigation management, crop rotation, and use of trap crops help reduce
populations of weeds, microorganisms, insects, mites, and other pests. These cultural
practices are more preventive than curative and thus may require planning in advance.
 The diversified habitat provides these parasites and predators with alternative food
sources, shelter, and breeding sites.
 The use of trap strip crops can control insect damage at the field edges and at the same
time avail refuge and food for beneficial insects.

 Insect resistance is an important component of pest and disease management.

 Quality-based resistance can be induced in plants through management of nutrients
and irrigation.
 In many traditional agricultural systems a diversity of crops in time or space can be
found. Knowing that different plants have different requirements for nutrients, a good
crop planning and management is required in order to optimize the use of nutrient in the
soil.
 Crop rotation, intercropping, cover crops and green manures represent the main
alternatives to the farmers to manage soil health and fertility.

CULTURAL CONTROL STRATEGIES

1. Crop rotation
 Means changing the type of crops grown in the field each season or each year.
 It is a critical feature of all organic cropping system, because it provides the
principal mechanisms for building healthy soils, a major way to control pests,
weeds, and to maintain soil organic matter (Mohler and Johnson 2009).
2. Intercropping
 Refers to the practice of growing two or more crops in close proximity: growing
two or more cash crops together, growing a cash crop with a cover crop, or other
non-cash crop that provide benefits to the primary crop (Mohler and Johnson
2009).
3. Tilling
 Tillage can cause destruction of the insect or its overwintering chamber, removal
of the protective cover, elimination of food plants, and disruption of the insect life
cycle generally killing many of the insects through direct contact, starvation or
exposure to predators, and weather.
4. Cover crop
 Every plant which covers the soil and improves soil fertility can be a cover crop. It
could be a leguminous plant with other beneficial effects, or it could be a weed
characterized by its rapid growth and enormous production of biomass.
 The most important property of cover crops is their fast growth and the capacity
of maintaining the soil permanently covered.
5. Mulching
 Mulching is the process of covering the topsoil with plant material such as leaves,
grass, twigs, crop residues, straw etc.
 A mulch cover enhances the activity of soil organisms such as earthworms.
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 Earthworms help to create a soil structure with plenty of smaller and larger pores
through which rainwater can easily infiltrate into the soil, thus reducing surface
runoff.
 As the mulch material decomposes, it increases the content of organic matter in
the soil.
 Soil organic matter helps to create a good soil with stable crumb structure. Thus
the soil particles will not be easily carried away by water. Therefore, mulching
plays a crucial role in preventing soil erosion.

Sources of mulching materials:

 Weeds or cover crops
 Crop residues
 Grass
 Pruning material from trees
 Cuttings from hedges
 Wastes from agricultural processing or from forestry

Advantages of Cultural Control Methods:

 Cheapest of all control measures because they usually only require modifications to
normal production practices.
 Sometimes, they do not require extra labor, only careful planning.
 Dependable and usually specific.
 Profitable for high value crops.
 Importantly, do not possess detrimental side effects of pesticides and develop
resistance, undesirable residues in food, feed crops and environment and the killing of
the non-target organisms.

Disadvantages of Cultural Control Methods:

 Require long term planning for greatest effectiveness and need careful timing.
 Effective only on one pest and maybe ineffective for some closely related species.
 More demanding on farmer’s competence.
 Effectiveness of cultural control is difficult to assess.
 Do not always provide complete economic control of pests.

Things should be considered in Cultural Control Methods includes:

1. Site selection
 Selecting land area for growing of crops.
2. Planting design and management
 Crop isolation, planting density and spacing, mixed cropping, timing of seedling
and planting, crop rotation, destruction of volunteer plants, management of
alternate hosts, management of trap crops, and management of nursery crops
and mgt. of surrounding environments.
3. Maintenance of site
 Cultivation tillage, fertilization, liming and manuring, timing of tillage and
fertilization operations, pruning defoliation and topping, irrigation, drainage,
sanitation and crop residue destruction and also mulches.
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4. Harvesting procedures
 Strip harvesting
III. Application: Enumerate the various advantages and disadvantages of cultural control
methods. Write your answers by completing the semantic web below. (Answer it in any-
order).

ADVANTAGES OF DISADVANTAGES
CULTURAL OF CULTURAL
CONTROL CONTROL
METHODS METHODS

1. 1.

2. 2.

3. 3.

4. 4.

5. 5.

IV. Self-Check
Question: 5 points each (Write your answers inside the boxes provided below).
1. Based on your personal experiences, views and understanding, what particular cultural
control method/s or strategy/ies you usually done when planting crops in your garden or
in the farm? Elaborate why this type of method/s or strategy/ies helps in growing of
crops.
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2. Based on your personal views, knowledge and understanding, why some farmers or
gardeners using mulch or mulching when planting crops?

Note: Return this weekly lesson module at the end of the week.
Thank you

References:

TESDA Training Regulations

Mohler C.L., Johnson S.E. 2009. Crop Rotation on Organic Farming: A planning manual.
Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Services (NRAES), Cooperative Extension,
Ithaca, NY.

Training Manual for Organic Agriculture

2015 published

Prepared by: NICASIO G. MAGNO, JR.

Teacher II / SHS Coordinator