Dear Andras

IPM is mainly practiced on perennial crops like citrus,cut flowers and sugarcane in Zimbabwe. It is also practiced on annual crops, especially on vegetables like tomatoes, mange tout peas and cabbages. For citrus, about 2000 ha of the crop remains under proper management (thus, IPM is still practiced). The cutflower industry is now very very small- I do not have figures on the acreage. Close to 30 000 ha of land is under sugarcane.

There are two big local universities offering MSc Crop Protection degrees. In addition, all local universities (about 16) which offer BSc Agriculture( Honours) degrees have a component of IPM in their curricula. In addition, about 12 agricultural and polytechnical colleges offerring agriculture/horticulture certificates and diplomas also have curricula that covers aspects of IPM.

Government regulates the pesticide industry with regards to what chemicals are imported into the country, who can import, on what crops the pesticdes can be applied, etc. Government, through the Department of Agriculture and Extension Services (AGRITEX) does train people on safe farming practices. This is normally when IPM is emphasized to farmers.

Farmers into the export business are bound by regulations of the importers not to use certain pesticides. So they end up looking at alternative methods off dealing with pests in their fields.

Very pertinent discussion. while origin or IPM or any concept in science is no material where it started, however, it is important that it is accepted world over. The discussion by Bozsik is very important since, investigating the component of IPM is itself is considered as IPM. Yes. I agree that ETL level of any pest is necessary to be investigated first as a strategy. The problem is mainly of lack of patience, at investigators, governement, policy makers and user's end. Every body want quick solutions. In fact development of IPM requies first understanding the individual insect pest first, well said by Bozsik, followed by investigating individual components and then more importantly the combination. In India, for agriculture similar thing happened in the past. But now with the ETL of most of the insect pests known, emphasis is more on combination treatments and successional use of alternatives so as to achieve the management in the form of module below ETL level. Since I am working on forestry aspects, would like to discuss that calculating ETL of many of the pests infesting standing trees is very difficult, particularly those with life cycle of a year or more. However, after investigating detailed ecobiology of the pests, now we are coming up with integrated pest management models based on baseline data of the localilty under investigation. I have done it particularly for the white grub management in forest nurseries (Kulkarni et al., 2007; 2009; Kulkarni, 2010; 2014). For the betterment of humanity, IPM should not be the field for getting laurels from the scientific community by publishing scientific articles, but its main success lies in its implementation at local level with the local administration getting convinced for agriculture and forestry. Ultimately resulting in to convincingly reduced use of chemical insecticides.

In no way in Russia (some review on rodent pest management in Russia is available in introductory section of S A Shilova, A V Tchabovsky (2009) Population response of rodents to control with rodenticides, 81-91. In Current Zoology 55 (2).

http: // www. actazool. org/paperdetail. asp?id=11112

Few people here heard about IPM and all attempts to implement it fail due to conservatism and incompetence of policy-makers and administration.

In countries like Pakistan, in absence if any of true safe pesticides (since i have to import even need seed oil for some trials from abroad) it is really impossible to integrate bio agents in IPM.

in absence of any concept of organic farming commercial agriculturist are not inclined to use the tactics by which they have to wait for the results longer and also with some loss of product that is inevitable in case of true IPM.

As you said Bozsik that only very smart entomologist with thorough knowledge and plenty of experience and above all with proactive approach can be successful in its implementation.

As far as ETL and EIL are concerned i think these level described for pesticide treatment will not work for IPM. For example you have to react quite early when you are going for biological control early in season of crop but your benificials will be established only when pest have reached at certain level.

In short in Pakistan IPM is only restricted to research purpose since very long. Nothing concrete come out yet. Trichogramma spp is well spoken but growers are not satisfied with its results. Its efficiency can be admitted only if private laboratories will be seen working in villages but so far it is mere a dream.

Dear Riswan,

Did you mean neem oil? As far as I know Azadirachta indica is produced in India and it may be native in Pakistan, too. Regarding ET and EIL values, according to the IPM notion not only biological agents can be used against a pest. As to natural enemies, in many cases continual use of a biologilal agents is needed , which can make unnecessary the EIL value. However, the use of ET and EIL is hugely decreasing unnecessary chemical control.

In Mexico, right after the renewal of the Plant Protection Federal Law (Ley Federal de Sanidad Vegetal) in 1994, IPM started to be a reality in several crops. Most important ones were citrus and mangoes for exportation (in the case of fruit flies), and avocado. Some other crops have been under some degree of IPM, mainly pushed by market needs. However, the massive agriculture lacks the rationnale of IPM, and agronomists are not well educated in EIL, IPM or adequate sampling methods and prorams.

In Hungary some are in the rhetoric stadium and their main methodology is lip service. Others attained Integrated Pesticide Management but without the integreted adjective. No EIL, no ET, no forecasting. The teaching of "IPM" is teaching simple pesticide use. No textbooks on IPM are available in Hungarian. Official organisation of Crop Protection is weak.

Yes Bozsik in spite of the fact neem tree is native to our region no product is available commercially.

i think after a history of well usage of ipm techniques thse are now are now diminishing with increase of price in food products because farmers are not willing to lose any fruit and simply go for hard pesticides.

After trichogramma i want to draw your attention towards the pheromone lures. Once regarded as highly useful tool in ipm is loosing its ground every where in world including Pakistan. In 1990's trap net work for cotton pests was started by government but now for new generation of farmers it is a unheard. Do not you think the manufacturing of this type of sex attractants is decreasing.

Do not you think these facts are showing that ipm is not in progress world wide.

I was shocked after reading about the ipm in europe (Hungary) too.

Ethiopia (East Africa): I can not say much but I will share the little I know, I know some reseach station level work done with crop scientists and entemologists to look at the integration of leggumes to control the stalk borrer moth, and the extension work related to that. In addtion in the past 5 years or so the push pull system is bein introduced, and farmer level experiments have showen real promissing results, and I think the ministry is thinking of develping it into an extnsion package. This is as much as I know, hope it helps. Here is an artilce on the puch pull strategy: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1491/611.full.pdf+html

As to your questions related to the ET and EIL, I don't have any idea, so maybe this will not help you.

Sarah.

Does it mean that EIL and ET values are not known and used in your country? Practically, IPM may be at the rhetoric level?

Dear Andras,

I am not sure, I only gave you limited information on it. I know about it from the technical implementation side, and not the sociao-economic side. Sorry, that is all I know. I would expect if you spoke to natrual resouce economists, or people who were actually involved they may be able to gvie you a bettr view. I will however note that with the traditional IPM and the new ideas with the push pull approach, IPM is implemented in Ethiopia.

Dear Andras,

In Spain, according to the latest data published (June, 2013) for the area under IPM in 2012 is 803.480 ha, I attached file with the data by regions, crops and their evolution in recent years. Sorry, as this information is in Spanish. Sincerely.

Dear Andras,

In Ethiopia, IPM is practiced is mainly with the Horticulture sector. Specially Export based horticulture farms like rose and some vegetable farms.

Dear Tomas,

Real IPM depends on the regular use of EIL, ET values and a sophistaceted forecasting system at each level (country, regional, local). Official statistics often cannot even touch the real situation. If your data are true you can be proud for your country.

You can very easily verify implementation of IPM you should only get actual EIL values say in maize or orange. The home page you indicated seems to be beautiful however, I know that too much pesticides are used in olive groves in your country.

In Taiwan, It is difficulty to collect the ET, EILvalue as IPM. Because our farmers at most have only one-two hectares each person. It is nonsense for timing control according to EIL. We always taught them to suppress the pest by combing 2or 3 control methods, including biorational implementing pesticides. Some pesticides are limited in agricultural crop. Recent years, we attempted to practice an area-wide control-IPM for suppressing the oriental fruit fly. In addition to using male annihilation, protein bait and sanitation, we organized the farmers grouped the control teams. And we set up many monitoring trap to collect the population density. Every farmer could join the suppressing work. So far, it save many moneys and reduce the cost of implementing pesticides. So far, it is still keep working. It seems to integrate many control method to do as IPM in Taiwan. In fact, we still hard to calculate the ET or EIL depends on various host plants. We only take action according population trends by monitoring data. I think it is not enough. Do you have any suggestion for the fruit flies IPM?

In Pakistan it the approach of IPM is connected with Farmer Field School (FFS) , a well known and internationally recognized farmers learning theme. Well applied in all the crops i-e cotton, wheat, sugarcane, vegetables and fruits. The basic theme is learning by doing during whole cropping season. There are four basic principles of IPM-FFS learning are:

1. Grow healthy crop

2.Observe crop regularly

3.Conserve natural enemies (predators insects)

4. farmers become expert

less reliance on harmful pesticides chemical use are achievable goals set here purposly.

Thats a few relevance picture about IPM in Pakistan

I am not a specialist of IPM, but I found these documents in biblio, which could be of some help concerning Europe:

1) http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ppps/pdf/final_report_ipm.pdf

2) and the summary of a meeting on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) - National Action Plans in Nordic-Baltic countries (7-8 November 2012 Estonia):

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) has been an important issue for a long time but the new EU directive (2009/128/EC) pushed the IPM development radically. Every member state of the EU must make an pesticide action plan (NAP), which among other things should assure implementation of IPM principles. The NAP must be done before the end of 2012 and the IPM principles must be in use in the year 2014. In practice this will be just a beginning of the continuous IPM learning and development of crop specific IPM guidelines which fit to regional circumstances. A lot of work should be done and collaboration is urgently needed so that the diminishing IPM know-how will suffice the need of information horizontally and vertically along food chains. The first seminar: “Are we ready for the EU IPM ?” will connect people from all the stakeholder organizations, which are working on the area of sustainable use of pesticides and development of IPM practices in the northern zone of Europe. Implementation of the IPM will be a challenging task in all of the Nordic-Baltic countries. The aim of the seminar is to improve information exchange among all the IPM experts of the Nordic-Baltic countries and to make common cause to work together, in order to make sustainable use of pesticides fits to the demands of EU policymakers and consumers as well as stimulate the process in the direction of reducing pesticide dependence of agro-food systems.

Best regards, Gerard

Dear Gerard,

Thanks for your valuable contribution. However, I think legislative and bureaucratic measures of EU may have only a mild political push for starting real IPM. Without the will and financial support of the political power and a broad information campaign for growers this is only a gesture. I repeat again education, operating forecasting system and EIL, ET values implemented by specialists are essential. Certainly, there need governmental support and the existence of grower unions in Taiwan and Pakistan for this task. Determination of EIL and ET values is not the growers’ task. This is beyond them but they have to be instructed how to use the measured and counted forecasting data and EIL values

Dear Yu-Bing,

I am not a dipterist and have no information on the situation in Taiwan. Can you give some details?

However, it seems to me that the starting work you did so enthusiastically for implementing IPM is a hopeful one.

Dear Andras,

I completely agree with your comment. It's absolutely necessary that research and extension institutions take IPM as a priority program.

Dear Andras,

In Taiwan, most researches think IPM is just a trait integrated many control methods, for example, Biological control, Physical control, Cultural control, and Chemical control. Most pest managers took 2-3 methods to teach farmers or growers implementing it. But authorities hope researches to collect ET, EIL and forecasted pest fluctuation. It’s very important tool to assess the cost/benefit of taking action plan. So far, seldom researches involved in studying ET,EIL. I agree your idea. It is not essential task to the growers. But pest manager should know it. Why researches is not willing to study the ET,EIL in Taiwan? I think it is a problem to collect real time production value and pesticide expeditions. And has not set up long term monitoring pest data. Small farm is another problem in Taiwan. Only little farm is difficult to present all the farms.

Dear Andreas,

I would like to give my feed back to part of your reply: "However, I think legislative and bureaucratic measures of EU may have only a mild political push for starting real IPM. Without the will and financial support of the political power and a broad information campaign for growers this is only a gesture. A repeat again education, operating forecasting system and EIL, ET values implemented by specialists are essential."

As the EU member state Slovenia has implemented the Directive 2009/128/EC for sustainable use of pesticides and adopted a national action plan to achieve sustainable use of plant protection products (PPP) in agricultural and horticultural production by implenting IPM (mandatory to adjust plant protection/production by 2020) and organic production (voluntary certification). But even before ET & EIL were use in grape, fruit and some filed crops production like potatoes (Phytophthora infestans forecasts are ongoing since 1954) and cereals. In Slovenia plant protection forecasting service is organised, which is responsible for monitoring and using an agrometeorlogic network. See some links and if interested some more detalis below (since websites are in Slovenian only):

http://fito-gis.mko.gov.si/Default.htm

http://agromet.mko.gov.si/index.asp?ID=Varstvo/default.asp

http://agromet.mkgp.gov.si/APP/Home/METEO/-1

In 2012 new Plant protection products act has been adopted to transpose the Directive 2009/128/EC for sustainable use of pesticides. The act regulates: the placing on the market and use of PPP; provide for the national action plan to achieve sustainable use of PPP; the training of sellers and users of PPP; inspection of PPP application equipment; specific measures regarding the use of PPP; informing the public about PPP; expert tasks, laboratories and research work in relation to PPP; record keeping and obtaining and use of data. The Act provides provisions for the authorisation and issue of permits for PPP; fees and the manner of record keeping concerning the placing on the market and use of PPP for the implementation of the Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 concerning the placing of PPP on the market.

The new act (2012) continues to regulate training of professional users of PPP and inspection of application equipment, which have been in the practice since 2001. To be able to use PPP, PPP users are obliged to undertake also a certain volume of training in addition to basic required qualification, if such users are involved in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) measure of agri-environmental subsidies. The AFVP verifies whether the contents of the training in IPM programme includes also the content on protection of human health, the environment and waste management that result from the use of PPP.

Regular inspections of equipment for the surface application of PPP (sprayers, sprinklers) are governed by three regulations, on the basis of which the equipment inspected is labelled by control organisations indicating its proper function. Each year in April, before the start of the spraying season, organisations authorised to carry out inspections of the PPP application equipment organise in-the-field inspections. Users of the spraying equipment are obliged to have their PPP application equipment tested every 3 years.

Measures directly associated with the use of PPP at the level of an agricultural holding include the basic principles of integrated pest management (IPM) as referred to in Annex III to Directive 128/2009. For this purpose, the authorised competent institutions provide all tools, information and advice available for the proper application of the basic principles. Monitoring and forecasting plant health service is implemented by 5 institutes, covering 5 regions under generic name Slovenian plant protection service since 1994. It operates as a public service of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment (MAE), its operation has been coordinated by the AFVP on the basis of the multiannual Programme of the Republic of Slovenia for the Phytosanitary Field which is adopted by the minister. The Slovenian plant protection service perform tasks under concessions subject to the Plant Health Act in the field of monitoring and forecasting of harmful organisms, as well as plant health expert tasks which include diagnostic laboratories, researches and development of new plant protection methods including biological control.

Over the past two decades the prognosis in the plant protection has focused on the use of all available information technologies that have contributed to a more precise and real-time given measurements of biotic and abiotic parameters, monitoring, forecasting and advice on the occurrence and spread of pests in plant production. 95 field weather stations are used in the network of phytosanitary information system. The weather data is given to public use at a Slovenian agrometeorological portal – AGROMET (http://agromet.mkgp.gov.si ), while plant protection forecasts can be received by e-mail, SMS or available at web site (http://www.fito-info.si/pr/obv/ ). To share spatial information in the field of plant health and plant protection products with the public, the Phytosanitary Spatial Portal has been developed (http://fito-gis.mko.gov.si ).

Introduction of integrated production with IPM in Slovenia started in 1991. First attempts were recorded in fruit-growing, while later integrated production spread to wine-growing and vegetable cultivation. In 2011 52% of wine-growers, 26% of field-crop growers, 70% of fruit growers, 65% of vegetable growers and 80% of hop-growers were included in integrated production. In addition in 2011, 2,363 agricultural holdings were included in ecological control with 32,149 ha of agricultural land in use (6.8% of all agricultural land in use).

IPM signifies a combination of agri-technical measures and plant protection measures against harmful organisms. This is primarily aiming at reducing risks to human health and impacts on the environment and reaching an efficient plant protection. The essential objective of integrated production is thus a balanced implementation of measures for the production of healthy and quality food by complying with economic, ecological and toxicological factors.

Dear V. Knapič,

I have a question: what you have written is your personnel opinion as a specialist who has real experiences or it is the official communiqué of your ministry? Have you right as a civil servant of the Ministry of Agriculture in Slovenia to have an opinion versus the official statements?

It seems to me that your country is a wonderland and everything operates as it is written in EU directives. I do not know how could occur the dioxin and other pesticide residues troubles in EU? I cannot understand why have been banned neonicotinoids this March in EU?

Dear Andras,

What I have written is not an official communique of the ministry as your question is not posed on belhaf of your institute. I have contributed my text as relevant technical information, describing the state of play in Slovenia, which can be verified via published information. Similar text was approved by hierarchy as part of different documents, intera alia in our action plan, so I do not express my personal opinion, either. My profile here may lack some details, but I have got a decade of experience as plant pathologyst at research institute and another decade of experience at the NPPO - technical body under the ministry, organising plant protection monitoring, prognostic service and agro-meteo network. So I am giving only information I am familiar with.

I forgot to tell you that I very much agree with second part of your statement I had quoted before: " ...that financial support of the political power and a broad information campaign for growers this is only a gesture. I repeat again education, operating forecasting system and EIL, ET values implemented by specialists are essential"

IPM is demanding dinamic process which has to be supported with a lot of research and development work. Global trade, climate change and related issues bring new pests and diseases. Implementing IPM with more non-chemical mehtods, biological control and at the same time lacking some effective pesticides need new approach. Slovenia is not a wonderland, institutes need to be supported to intensify their work... I have heard that new research and inovation program Horizon 2020 has been just adopted (replacing FP7 programs). As I remember, IPM fits into it.

Debrecen is not too far from Ljubljana: you are most welcome, we can discuss the subject further.

Best regards,

Vlasta

Dear Vlasta,

Many thanks you wrote me your first name. Your first comment was very similar to an overoptimistic EU regulation the echo of which one can find easy in the text of any ministry whose country belongs to EU. In addition, I have found similar optimistic text in a PDF of your ministry on internet. Directions, regulations and all kinds of communication belong to the rhetoric stadium of IPM. I would like you only to describe and report accurately all the EIL values of a single crop culture you use them in Slovenia.

I remark: objective of some so called published information is merely to influence or manipulate people. It is sad but what can I do? Fortunately, thinking has not been controlled (merely partly).

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.376890282411771.1073741830.167249656709169&type=3

visit this link on Facebook.. I have uploaded IPM for Sugarcane Crop..

Regards.

Dear Naeem,

Your program is fine but I have not found any EIL value or anything on forecasting or any economic relationship between insect damage and control.

Nice discussion Andras,

As an IPM specialist in tree fruit for the last 28 years in the eastern US, I would say that IPM is still going strong and evolving into ecologically-based IPM in apple especially. Other tree fruit such as peach, pear and cherry are lagging significantly behind as I would say is also happening with vegetable and field crops. The GMO situation and pre-treated seed in field crops like corn have not helped the situation and have taking the decision making abiity to treat for pests away from the growers and we have more pest outbreaks than we had on the family farm when I was a teenager acting as an IPM scout. Vegetable crops are still predominated by pyrethroid or neonic sprays and their is little if any biocontrol being incorporated.

To me the level at which biocontrol and non-pesticide treatments such as pheromone mating disruption, resitstant cultivars and rootstocks, Bts, and viruses such as the baculoviruses used for codling moth control determine the level of IPM we are at in any crop. With annual crops this is difficult and often the main pest control option is crop rotation. With tree fruit and small fruits like blueberry where the crops are present for decades, long-term stragies have to be used. Peach in our area does use mating disruption for Oriental fruit moth,and seseiid borer, but because of all the cheap pyrethroid use, little if any biocontrol can contribute to control in our peach orchards. In apple, we have strongly urged growers in Pennsylvania not to use pyrethroids and have biological control of pest mites on over 75% of our orchards, and slightly less effective control of scale and aphids, depending on the growers tolerance for these secondary pests.

The US adoption of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 opened the door for more pest selective pesticides being developed and as the old broadspectrum insecticides were phased out, products like methoxyfenozide, rynaxypyr, spinetoram, and other gave better control of the pests like codling moth and left most of the nontargets alone. A similar situation could be found in blueberries, but in the last 5 years new, invasive pests such as Drosophila susukii and the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug came in to the region from Asia and disrupted these more ecologically friendly programs based on selective insecticides. These pests are really only controlled well by the old broadspectrum pesticides such as organophosphates and carbamates that we were phasing out with FQPA or with pyrethroids which we had always avoided using. Apple growers lost $37 million in one year dues to damage by the stink bug and threw IPM out the window in many cases in order to stay in business. Some have seen the additional cost of mites, scale and aphid sprays under this new system and are reverting back to IPM, but we are only slowly developing alternative controls for these new pests and biological control from native insects is only slowly developing and at low levels. Waiting for classical biological control options imported from Asian could take 5-10 years to go through quarentine and environmental impact studies and then have to overcome the obstacle of being established in a new ecosystem.

Our 340 page tree fruit production guide for the eastern US can be downloaded for free from: http://extension.psu.edu/plants/tree-fruit/tfpg and has ET, monitoring methods, tables on impacts of various pesticides on beneficial insects including honey bees and solitary bees. Impact of pesticides on bees has been a big driver on IPM programs over the last couple years for obvious reasons and I incorporated many new recommendations to minimize neonic use and pesticide impacts in our newest version of this guide coming out next month. Over the last 2 years, a group of tree fruit specialist have been visiting Serbia to help them adopt this guide and IPM principals into their tree fruit production to faciliate their entry into the EU and I believe it is now online as well, although I still can't read Serbian. David

Dear David,

Many thanks for your thorough and detailed report. I am glad the situation of IPM is more than an illusion in US. What you have written is very hopeful after so much good ideas and work for implementing IPM in the country where it was born. In my country, the circumstances are not really favourable. I delivered a lecture at a national conference in 1998 with the title When IPM will be implemented in Hungary? In that time I could not see the future of IPM in Hungary. Troublesome teaching, no research, no forecasting, no resources, no will, no interest and very confusing perception on the idea of IPM were the most characteristic features. Unfortunately, the situation has not become better. We are in the middle of the rhetoric stage and I am afraid IPM is not even a collateral question in our agriculture which has many economic and social troubles. I will deliver a lecture on IPM particularly on EIL and ET in two months but I am sure nothing will change not even in the education. I as teacher try to do my best (I teach entomology, ecology and biological control) but in vain.

Thanks again for your valuable contribution as well as the URL on fruit tree IPM.

András

Dear Andras,

Sounds like we have similar hopes for the future of IPM. I saw similar problems as to what you described in Hungary when I was helping Serbia to develop apple IPM programs over the last year. No applied research, no funding, a lack of economic thresholds, testing for pesticide impacts on bees and beneficials, and with pesticide companies making most of the recommendations. As you mentioned it was mostly Pesticide Managment. We have problems here in the US as the teachers I had in the early 80s on IPM are retiring and not being replaced or are being replaced by extension faculty that are talking mostly about past work and aren't doing the applied research to develop new answers for new pests or to utilized new technoligies or even evaluated the specificity of new pesticides on pests, beneficials and now especially bees. Relying on chemical companies to give pest solutions is never unbiased and rarely IPM compatible. I worked R&D for a company for 8 years before coming back to applie research. Training new applies students with field work is becomming more of a problem as there are fewer faculty doing field work and the students can make more money working for the pesticide companies.

The biggest benefit to applied IPM research in the US over the last 5 years or so has been the increased priority given to this type of work through our USDA grants systems. The USDA-RAMP program we outline in the Agello et al pub on my researchgate profile shows how it brought research from 7 states together over a 7 year period with about $3.8 million to develop new reduced-risk IPM programs to replace pesticides eliminated by FQPA. The USDA-Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) program has been instrumental in dealing with research dealing with the pollinator crisis (I have about $2.2 million in bee grants currently for tree fruit pollinators currently), the invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug situation also recieved about $9 million in funding for multiple states to deal with this critical new pest of which I am working on conservation biological control options. A similar situation with multi-million $ funding is going on for Drosophila susukii. Our fruit growers have come together realizing the importance of this applied research and voluntarily donate up to $200,000 each year to fund applied research with universities and USDA-ARS to solve problems that they define and grower panels vote on funding. Support from the western US fruit growers is even bigger. Getting grower cooperatives to support each other and applied research was something I did not see in Serbia. Grower cooperatives mostly seemed to exist to have a greater chance in getting state subsidies. The idea that the growers could band together, provide some funding that they directed seemed to be a new idea, but one that should be considered. The Brewer et al pub from my profile examines the federal funding situation for IPM in the US and I would recommend the Jones et al. paper as well where we discussed whether FQPA was furthering IPM in tree fruit. My worldwide review of the mite predator Stethorus gives a good picture of the evolving IPM programs for biological mite control in the eastern US and how it changed with new pesticide chemistries. I have several papers on the impacts of new pesticides on pollinators and biological control agents such as mite predators.

I started out as a taxonomist, so a central theme for me has been the conservation of biological control agents and biodiversity in general in agriculture, so I even have some collaborative work in field crops looking at GMO effects on arthropod communites. Hope some of this helps. David

Dear David,

It is a good thing you can write on troubles to solve, funding, students’ work etc. Unfortunately, a lot of invasive alien species (IAS) have arrived to Hungary like Harmonia axyridis, Tuta absoluta, Rhagoletis cingulata, Metcalfa pruinosa, Scaphoideus titanus, Illinoia liriodendri etc. We started to teach them and I began to deal with them but this is only a wholly private action without funding. There are EU funds but regarding our caveman facilities we have no chance to get one. Our growers believe only in chemical control and many of them are balancing at the limit of being bankrupt. So much about hope... I have called for students to deal with subjects like I have mentioned above and formulated about 80 titles for future diploma works (these are mini theses which are compulsory for getting a degree) but students do not like to work, they prefer a simple herbicide or pheromone test. However, it is good to see you are working so well.

Dear Andras,

Our Entomologist is on "Dengue campaign" in other city for 10 days. He has all data with him as you mentioned. I will be back with his findings soon.

Dear Naeem.

Thanks. We are waiting for these data.

IPM is in place and always reviewed for improvements to control sea-lice in intensive farming of salmon in Europe and all major producing countires. This includes site fallowing and single year class rearing, management of the farm environment to minimize pest multiplication, coordinated treatment across management areas and data sharing, rotational and mix treatments to minimize resistance build-up. An emerging component of it is the stocking of cleaner fish in cohabitation as a biological control. Other on-going developments that may be deployed commercially are breeding of the salmon for resistance, vaccin development, use of semiochemical and other lures

I wanted to mention this positive approach with positive results in intensive salmon farming. Relevant publications can be found online

Dear Eric,

It is very fine you have sent your experiences on the use of IPM in intensive salmon farming. This shows how broadly IPM as a theory and practice can be applied successfully. Your comment was for me worthy of note because I have had familiarity only on agricultural relationships of the IPM idea.

IPM is advocated but its use is not common. Still chemical pesticides alone are used by most of the farmers to control various diseases and pests. Lack of easy availability of biopesticides is another cause.

Dear Jai,

IPM has another aspests than the use of biopesticides or biological control.

IPM has 3919 followers on RG...

Dear Andras,

This is an interesting question. Below, I tried to answer for Iran.

Happy New Year!

Mahmoud

"In practice, no farms in Iran adopted the principles of IPM until 1999 when the Farmer Field School (FFS) approach was first introduced as part of a pistachio IPM project in Semnan Province which resulted in successfully empowering farmers to deal with many of their own problems, reducing production costs, and increasing income during two successive seasons. However, In general, even after about a decade of the introduction of IPM/FFS in Iran by national and international institutions —FAO and the Global Environment Facility (small grants program)—IPM/FFS can still be described as “a pilot project idea,” although currently it is becoming a mainstream

approach in Iran."

Source: Hashemi, S.M., Peshin, R., Feola, G., Hosseini, S.M. 2013. From the farmers’ perspective: pesticide use and pest control. In: Pimentel, D., Peshin, R., (Eds.), Integrated Pest Management-pesticide problems, Vol.3. Springer: Dordrecht.

wow this is very interesting question. in my country Ethiopia. there is a projects working on cotton farm to produce organic cotton product by applying IPM concept and FFS.This project us bio pesticide and bio fertilizes and participate farmers by FFS.

Dear Seyyed,

It is fascinating to know that IPM is becoming a mainstream approach of agricultural production in Iran.

Could you give us some details on the IPM development in Iran?

Crops where IPM is used, acreage of various crop cultures managed by IPM, support of farmers, students, specialists, researchers? Research centre(s), units where EIL, ET values have been assessed?

Dear Andras,

Thank you for your new post. In response to your question, please just let me make my previous post more clear: IPM is still “a pilot project idea,” within farms and farmers' communities in Iran. But, in policy makers', scientists' communities it is "becoming" a mainstream approach in Iran. I you are interested in more details, please send me your email address.

All the best,

Mahmoud

Dear Mekonnen,

What kind of biopesticides and fertilizers have been used in the cotton IPM project? Can you give some data on the acreage and EIL values?

Like in the social aspect, 'country' includes a very different population of things. In this case, in Colombia there are some crops in specific regions they have implemented (I guess you direct the question in that way) pioneers methodologies of pest management, with a very strong resesearch in this field, like sugarcane crops in Valle del Cauca (Led by Cenicaña), or organic management of banana crops in Guajira Region.This advance, I guess, is driven by the economic "forces" , the need of client to consume something clean and sustainaby produced. These examples are from large companies. I apologize for my english.

Dear Andras

I will talk about IPM in the Zimbabwean context. As a country, Zimbabwe has undergone a land reform process in the last 15 or so years. Before the year 2000, Zimbabwe had a vibrant commercial agriculture sector where IPM was practiced on most farms. I remember we used to visit commercial plantation estates, organic farms and floriculture farms on educational tours and learnt a lot about IPM.

After the year 2000, the new farmers that have taken over farming activities aren't so much into IPM. There is over-reliance on synthetic pesticides for pest management. However, we still have some farmers in organic farming who rely on cultural and biological tactics for pest management.

In the smallholder communal farming sector, I have observed that farmers do incorporate some components of IPM into their farming activities. The farmers do not normally have adequate financial resources to buy synthetic chemicals, so they end up using other control options in dealing with a given pest.

IPM is a component of our curricula in agricultural colleges and universities. This ensures that our graduates are knowledgeable about IPM. Our agricultural extension workers then disseminate IPM concepts to farmers. Whether the farmers adopt IPM or not is governed by socio-economic factors I have mentioned above.

Dear Johann,

Thanks for your contribution. Certainly, your English is OK. Language has only an aim to make to understand each other. There is however a difference: organic is not perfectly IPM. In IPM you can use pesticides if necessary, in organic production use of pesticides is not allowed.

Dear Charles,

Thanks for your contribution.

What are the most important crops where IPM are used and what about the acreage? Are there a special crop protection training (MSc of crop protection) at your agricultural faculties? Are there some govermental rules on the use of crop protection theories and tactics like a law on pesticides?

Dear Andras

IPM is mainly practiced on perennial crops like citrus,cut flowers and sugarcane in Zimbabwe. It is also practiced on annual crops, especially on vegetables like tomatoes, mange tout peas and cabbages. For citrus, about 2000 ha of the crop remains under proper management (thus, IPM is still practiced). The cutflower industry is now very very small- I do not have figures on the acreage. Close to 30 000 ha of land is under sugarcane.

There are two big local universities offering MSc Crop Protection degrees. In addition, all local universities (about 16) which offer BSc Agriculture( Honours) degrees have a component of IPM in their curricula. In addition, about 12 agricultural and polytechnical colleges offerring agriculture/horticulture certificates and diplomas also have curricula that covers aspects of IPM.

Government regulates the pesticide industry with regards to what chemicals are imported into the country, who can import, on what crops the pesticdes can be applied, etc. Government, through the Department of Agriculture and Extension Services (AGRITEX) does train people on safe farming practices. This is normally when IPM is emphasized to farmers.

Farmers into the export business are bound by regulations of the importers not to use certain pesticides. So they end up looking at alternative methods off dealing with pests in their fields.

Dear Charles,

Many thanks for the detailed and comprehensive description. Could you assess the rate of IPM managed acreage say of the citrus and sugarcane whole territory ? Are you satisfied with this percentage? If you have experiences in the field of IPM teaching, are you satisfied with it? Regarding Hungarian circumstances, I am not.

Andras and all,

It seems that IPM is more readily practiced in perennial crops like apples and citrus rather than from annual crops like vegetables and sugar cane, no matter what country they are grown in. The rotation of annual crops to new unrelated crops to break up pest lifecycles is one of the main tactics that perennial crops obviously can't use. Other IPM tactics such as pheromone trapping to establish biofix for degree day models to time sprays for susceptible pest stages or timings (such as egg hatch on codling moth) could and should be used in other crops such as vegetables, but are often not because rotations are considered the first line of defense on annual crops. Annual crops are often in highly disturbed ecosystems with relatively little beneficial insect biodiversity to help control the pests. Even citrus and apple orchards take several years to build up beneficial insects to control aphid, leafhopper and mite pests.

So does the IPM tactic of biological control have as much a chance to succeed in an annual crop as it does in an orchard which may exist for 25-50 years? These perennial crops also tend to be higher value crops that can afford pheromone mating disruption, selective insecticide use, and phonological models for the timing of insect and disease sprays. Pesticide resistance is a big concern in a long-term crop like apple and the timing of sprays for susceptible pest stages or infection periods is more important. Tree fruit and citrus trees are also fairly hardy, so they can tolerate pests such as aphids and leafhoppers that feed only on the plant juices and not the marketable fruit. In vegetable crops theses 2ndary pests also have to be controlled or the plant could be stunted. So in apple IPM we have a tolerance of less than 1% damage for fruit injury, but much more tolerance for these other pests that don't injure the fruit. The result is often referred to as a hybrid IPM program where the fruit feeding pests are controlled almost completely with insecticides or pheromone mating disruption, but the secondary pests that don't feed on the fruit are left to biological control since they can be tolerated to some extent. Pheromone disruption is a great tactic that works well for many tree fruit crops because many of our main pests are Lepidoptera, but in other crops they may be beetles or some other pest that doesn't have a pheromone.

An annual crop like corn should be able to tolerate some damage from say the European corn borer, since it only affects yield at higher than 1% injury levels. The driver for the grower in this situation should be an economic threshold of the cost of spraying for the pest and if it saves him money - if he is going to lose 5% of his yield, but it costs the equivalent of 10% of the yield to spray, then he shouldn't. His profit margins are not as high as they would be for high-value crops like tree fruit and citrus.

Crop quality is not as much as an issue as it is for fruit. The total costs for a Pennsylvania grower to produce an acre of fresh market apples would be about $3,700 of which only about $1,000/acre would be for insecticide, herbicide and fungicide sprays. So the grower can afford to pay an IPM consultant $40-50/acre to set up and read pheromone traps to monitor pests weekly, advise him on whether the use of mating disruption would fit his pest situation, whether he has enough predatory mites to avoid using a miticide, if he should rotate a fungicide to avoid apple scab resistance, etc. IPM in this situation can greatly reduce a growers costs and increase his fruit quality to get a higher $ return at harvest. Field crop values are so low, they obviously can't afford a consultant and many of the IPM techniques used in fruit and most times they probably are not necessary.

I would argue that IPM in organic tree fruit production is very similar to that in conventional orchards, just with fewer tools. The idea that organic means no pesticide spraying is common fallacy that just doesn't apply to tree fruit like apple. In eastern US apple orchards, organic production means you spray twice as often with products like sulfur for disease control because it rains often and is washed away quicker than synthetic products. Sulfur, like some other organic pesticide control options are very toxic to biocontrol agents and often more toxic than some of the selective synthetic pesticides like tebufenozide and others. Organic apple production in the desert area of the Western US is another story, since it doesn't rain and fungicides are rarely needed.

Dear David,

Certainly, use of biological control is much easier in perennial cultures than in annual crops because of the more stable environment of the first one.

However, I think IPM in annual crops can have its importance because impact of crop rotation cannot be sufficient regarding the distance of fields and also it is often impossible to implement the optimal rotation structure. I am sure it is obvious that forecasting and monitoring are necessary for reasonable crop protection and one must take into consideration the production charges. Thus it is worth implementing of IPM.

It is interesting I have had today an ecology lecture and I have talked about impact of temperature on insects and showed degree day models in apples and corn. I have used examples of American data and at the same time I have touched codling moth forecasting which is widely used in your country. This is a crop protection MSc course and students get 14 hours of ecology. It is not too much but better than nothing. Could you tell me how much ecology classes American students can attend?

European corn borer is a native species in Hungary and fortunately its damage is not high in corn only in sweet corn. In sweet corn Trichogramma maidis and other Trichogramma species can be used but only a few producers apply them. Other growers use pirethroids.

In apples pheromone mating disruption and resistant apple varieties are used but many growers are not satisfied with the efficiency of mating disruption. As to the use of sulphur growers use it widely in organic orchards but they have not mentioned its toxicity on natural enemies because they do not care for beneficial arthropods.

In Hungary farmers used to say agriculture has two devils: if the yield is low or if the yield is high. It means that sometimes it is difficult to market fruits because the prices are so depressed. Of course, depressed prices desperately need IPM use in fruit production.

Please could you read this book:

Maredia K., Dakouo D. & Mota-Sanchez D (edit.). 2003. Integrated Pest Management (IPM )in the Global Arena. CAB International (Slough, UK) ISBN 0 85199 652 3 -560 pages.

It gives a comprehensive overview of IPM successful cases all over the world.

It goes by chapters for several countries by continent (Europe, Africa, Asia, America) and then by International research, technical and financial organizations

Best regards

Dr Dona Dakouo (Burkina Faso) a co-editor of the book

Dear Dona,

Many thanks for your contribution. I hope many of the participants try to get and read your book. However, it would be more than useful if you could participate in this tiny discussion.

Iam a strong advocate of Indigenous Technical Knowledge, IPM and farmer field schools (FFS) in Zambia. Perhaps, there is a need to organise a workshop on this very important topic. Readers can read my article, which has been quoted in a book entiltled ' Integrated Pest Management, Potential, Constraints and Challenges edited by Opender Koul, G.S. Dhaliwal and G.W. Cuperus.

Reference

Nkunika, P.O.Y. (2002). Smallholder farmers' integration of indigenous technical knowledge (ITK) in maize IPM: A case study in Zambia. Insect Science and its Application 22, 235-240.

Spain is the world's largest exporter of fresh citrus. Valencia Region is where most of them are grown and almost all this production follows IPM guidelines and standards.

Please visit http://gipcitricos.ivia.es for more information (regrettably it is in Spanish only, but you can contact me for further information.

Hi Andras,

Typically a student in entomology in the US would take only 1 or 2 courses in insect ecology, but possibly more in general ecology as an under graduate. Chemical ecology is becoming more prevalent in many US entomology departments and often a class can be taken in that as a graduate student. Not sure if 14 hours equates to credits here or total lecture time. If I equate a credit to 10 hours of lecture, I would say our students get 30-60 credits as a PhD student. Lower end for MSc. Varies by department.

I agree that local monitoring is the most critical first step in IPM and we always get excuses that it takes too much time for growers, but without it IPM is weak. Some people get hung up on models, which most growers don't understand or use and we have to get them to understand there is no "prescription" for IPM that magically shows up every week from remotes sensing. A grower needs to know his pest pressure and local timings to determine thresholds for spraying. Otherwise, just spray every 7-14 days and be done with it - if he can afford it.

It is sad that many organic growers are out to save the environment but still use toxic natural chemicals and are not as tuned into beneficial insects and biocontrol as they should be. Pyrethroids are too broadspectrum in most cases to be integrated into IPM as they wipe out all beneficial insects and develop resistance quickly. Not very effective on many tree fruit pests as well. Sending your book out soon. David

In the UK, IPM is well developed for some crops (typically high value fruit and vegetables, grown in glasshouses or polytunnels), but less well developed for most arable field crops. Many of the IPM tools have been researched over the last 20+ years, but there is still a lack of on-farm (involving farmers) testing of optimised IPM toolboxes, adapted to specific cropping systems and regions.We have developed a good IPM system for protected raspberies, using pest-resistant cvs, biocontrol, biopesticides and semiochemicals (lures and traps). It took about 8 years of on-farm testing and lab refinement (with commercial companies) to finalise the system. I has alreasy reduced pesticide use by at least 30-40%, compared with conventional crop protection using pesticides. See my webpages for more details (James Hutton Institute, Nick Birch).

Dear Enrique,

I have seen the URL you indicated. I think the description of of pest species and also the proposed control methods are OK, however, in some cases the economic threshold value was a bit difficult to understand e.g. 0’5 moscas/mosquero/día regarding Ceratitis capitata. I think the number and surface of "mosquero" are important characteristics in this issue. Fortunately, it was easy to unferstand the Spanish text.

Andras,

You got me thinking about another measure of IPM adoption while I was at some fruit grower meetings last week that we have not mentioned yet. When I was an undergraduate in the early 80', I went through training by the university as an IPM scout and then later used those skills to pay for most of my schooling as an independent crop consultant in field crops and vegetables. Up until a couple of years ago, I was working as crop consultant for a couple of big apple growers on the weekends. So I wonder if the number and adoption of crop consultants is also another measure of IPM adoption. Of course some crop consultants are mostly prescribing pesticide sprays with little thought to biological control or other IPM principles - but most at least had some IPM training.

In Pennsylvania there are only 2 fruit consultants currently, but in New York and Washington state there are at least a dozen or so. In some states, the consultants have a good following with fruit growers and work closely with the universities, in some states they have more influence than the universities, and in some localities, the local pesticide distributor provides 'free" scouting if you buy their pesticides. Of course pesticide companies have little interest in IPM and the later example does not work well.

One of the problems we are having in the US is that we have few IPM training programs for new generations of IPM scouts/consultants. While we teach IPM in courses in the university, little of this training is hands on - mostly just theoretical. Many of the IPM successes and examples used are also from 20-30 years ago, which makes it hard to capture the attention of new students since it is ancient history. I try to provide current, real-world examples to keep their interest.

So, my question is are crop consultants being used in your region and are we training new students in IPM practice, not just theory?

I gave a previous response to the question by referring to the following book:

Maredia K., Dakouo D. & Mota-Sanchez D (edit.). 2003. Integrated Pest Management (IPM )in the Global Arena. CAB International (Slough, UK) ISBN 0 85199 652 3 -560 pages.

It gives a comprehensive overview of IPM successful cases all over the world.

It goes by chapters for several countries by continent (Europe, Africa, Asia, America) and then by International research, technical and financial organizations (World Bank).

In addition, a Global IPM Forum was held at Michigan State University (MSU) from 15-17 May 2008.

The Global IPM forum brought together the key representatives of the global IPM community for an interactive dialogue on emerging issues related to IPM research, education, extension/outreach, communication and networking to help enhance the development and adoption of IPM practices. In addition, the forum served an event to celebrate the completion of 100 years of the Department of Entomology at MSU.

More than 60 Global IPM leaders, program/project managers and research scientists from 29 countries in Africa, Europe, Central Asia, South Asia, Latin America, and North America attended this Forum. The participants represented national agricultural research systems (NARSs), policy makers, and representatives of international organizations, private sector, NGOs and donor community. Among the attendees were former participants of the MSU’s annual International IPM short course that has been offered since 1995.

The Goals and Objectives of the Global IPM Forum were to:

• Provide a platform for interactive discussions on the lessons learned in IPM implementation during the past 25-50 years and their implications for a new, equitable and sustainable global agriculture.

• Identify short-term and long-term global priorities in IPM research, education, and outreach activities towards meeting the emerging challenges and opportunities of the new global agriculture.

• Develop a plan of action for creating new global partnerships and strategies for strengthening IPM research, education, extension/outreach, communication, and networking globally.

Best regards

Dr Dona Dakouo (Burkina Faso) a co-editor of the IPM book and participant

at the Global IPM Forum.

Please see more details in the draft report of the meeting.

Dear David,

Let us see a bit of statistical data on the Hungarian crop protection training. There are 5 faculties where crop protection is trained at MSc level according to the crop protection education law. Formerly there is a subject at each faculty which is called Integrated Plant Protection but this is a tactical name change instead of Plant Protection Technology which clearly shows the dominance of chemical control. Three weeks ago I delivered a lecture, the text of which can be found among my publications. After the presentation two people asked something on the subject and explained his opinion and three other colleagues asked the pdf version of the lecture. I used my presence at the conference place, another university town and asked some students who happened to study crop protection about IPM at the university canteen. They had no idea. Last week we organized the final examination of crop protection students and I asked on the implementation of IPM very elementary questions. Students had practically no idea. There are no textbooks on IPM and there are no IPM articles in our single journal because people are interested mostly in chemical control. Many stress the importance of environmental protection and there are articles on the side effects of pesticides but there has not been any research work on IPM. I used to say there is a verbal IPM in Hungary. However, we have a National Crop Protection Chamber and its chairman would like to build a national forecasting net and to start real IPM training. Thus, there is some future hope… Fortunately, our crop protection specialists can find jobs relatively easily and we can say our training is popular. I think this unlucky situation is the consequence of the former agricultural paradigm (and training) when the official aim was the so called industrial like agricultural production in which only the yield growth was essential.

As to crop consultants: There are so called district agronomists who should help the untrained growers but these agronomists are not trained in crop protection. Bigger farms employ an agronomist with a crop protection degree and they have some knowledge in recognizing pests and to choose the suitable pesticide. I have heard that growers can hire crop protection agronomists in most cases to get somebody to manage pesticide applications which is controlled rigorously by the state. Practical scouting is not trained at all. Officially there is a forecasting subject at faculties but it is only theoretical.

David,

Still one thing: I have mentioned several times the RG opportunity and this discussion too. You can see at the crowd of Hungarians debating with us…

Horticulture is one of the most relevant segments of the Moroccan agriculture sector. Morocco country reaches the self-sufficiency in vegetable production, and this sector provides an employment for the working rural population. the horticultural sector, tomato production. Tomato and citrus crops are considered high value cash crop for farmers and important source of hand currency for the country with an annual export value. Unfortunately, the intensive conditions of the tomato and citrus production seem to be favorable to the pullulation of insects ( Mediterranean fruit fly, leaf miners, thrips, Whiteflies, Tuta absoluta, California red scale, spider mite, Aphids.....) and the development of some diseases (powdery mildew, downy mildew , gray mold, Brown Rot …) that cause more damage and affecting the yield quality. To reduce the pests attack, farmers use intensively some pesticides.Until 1987, integrated pest management was not recognised by farmers in Morocco. The development of IPM tactics mainly in horticultural crops (citrus and vegetables) in Morocco has evolved quickly between 1987 and 1996, showing impressive reductions (up to 70%) in pesticide use while improving crop quality and yield.Many citrus orchards are managed using IPM practices including the use of pheromone baited traps and action thresholds (Californian red scale and Mediterranean fruit fly ), as well as biological control bu using Aphytis melinus. Some toxic organophosphates are being replaced by softer chemical control (oils and analogues). The IPM program on tomato aims at managing diseases, insects, mites and nematodes. Yellow sticky and pheromone traps are installed for the monitoring of insects. The monitoring and decision making are conduced by both technicians and managers. Intensive cooperation between researchers, extension workers, producers of natural enemies and growers has led to some success, both in research and application of IPM in vegetable and citrus crops in Morocco.

In India, IPM package of practices is developed for many crops, cereals, pulses, vegetables etc considering the threshold levels. There are extension units of agri universities to promote it amongst farmers. Demo plots are set up as part of this. However, it is not yet practiced by majority, mainly because of the unavailability of biopesticides etc. Earlier, farmers could prepare neem based pesticides etc, as these trees were available in their farms. But now there are hardly any plantations on bunds. Not only biopredators etc are not accessable to remote farmers. But many of them use light traps, companion cropping, and other mechanical measures.

Dear Ansu,

It is fascinating IPM is practised in some acreage of India. However it is a big country where many growers use transgenic plants mainly transgenic cotton. What is your opinion how does introduction of transgenic crops influence the implementation of IPM?

regarding your question of the influence of introduction of transgenic cotton, i would like to quote the example of Pakistan. Before the introduction of Bt cotton un till the start of new century farmers after experiance have somewhat understood the impact of insect pests on cotton which were mainly the Lepidopterous Borers. Their ETLs were evaluated and well known and with the effort of agriculture department their forecasting was done on district level and farmers were quite familiar with pest scouting techniques. Since cotton was major crop of country with the time pesticide company have imported some bio rational insecticides with which the conservation of bio control agents like chrysopa and coccinellids was possible. Rearing and release of trichogramma was also being done on limited scale. But with the introduction of Bt cotton, all has changed. Since the pest dominance has been shifted from Borer species to Sucking ones, farmers have no clue even for their identification. Not well known (if any) ETL's of these new pests which were once in past were regarded as the minor pests. No bio pesticides and so the use of OPs and Pyrethroids is on the rise. Even research organizations have not come up with proper plan to control the pest and to educate the growers with this changed environment. So once again farmers are at the mercy of pesticide company which are the only benefitter of this situation.

Dear Andraz,

Now, in India, > 60% of area under cotton is Bt.

As in Pakistan (as said by Rizwan), there is general shift from boll worms to sucking pests (thrips) in India too. The minor / unseen pests such as mirid bug, mealy bug and shoot weevil are also attaining economic importance in cotton. This minor pest infestations are not been monitored regularly and often remedial measures are undertaken only after they reach epidemic or cause huge losses. This has increased the cost of plant protection. This increase, coupled with the high cost of seed cotton, is having a strong impact on socioeconomic condition of the farmers. The National Information System for Pest Monitorin in Bt cotton (in India) has set some objectives during their review meeting in 2013. The objectives are a). to develop an “On-line pest monitoring system” for Bt cotton. B). To share the information on pest scenario with state / central agencies for developing appropriate management strategies. c) To help the collaborating centres with regard to formulation of location specific IPM modules. D). To enhance the capabilities of farmers through trainings, awareness campaigns and electronic media by collaborating centres based on the information generated from pest monitoring system. E). To analyse the Socio-economic status of farmers in the light of change in pest scenario in Bt cotton. Of many outcomes of this objectives, one will be enriching the IPM spokespersons: Around 1300 farmers will be trained on identification of pests and their management in Bt cotton, who in turn will act as spokes persons for further horizontal dissemination of knowledge.

Handpicking of surviving bollworm larvae from Bt-cotton fields during peak bollworm infestation, wherever possible and destruction of residual pupae by deep ploughing in Bt-cotton fields immediately after final harvest will help immensely in resistance management are some of the practices currently instructed for Bt fields (source: NATIONAL INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR PEST MANAGEMENT (BT COTTON)

It is surprising to know that > 60% of cotton in India is Bt. The general perception is that Bt cotton has been banned in India! It seems there is a deliberate misinformation campaign in India on this aspect.

Dear Sumodan,

Government has not given licence for commercial cultivation of Bt Brinjal. (as it is edible)

But Bt cotton is extensively cultivated in Andhra pradesh, Gujrath etc.

This is again a big challenge in the promotion of organic cotton, as transgenics are not allowed in organic cultivation.

It is difficult to give a general picture of IPM in my country. There is a wide range of agricultural systems etc. e.g traditional, modern, and mix. What fit to where? what is the plan? where we are? However, there is a potential to adapt IPM and IWM programs.

As much i know in Pakistan all the cultivation of Bt cotton is without any licence. It has not been approved yet but farmers were initially allured towards its cultivation by the the spreading of the wrong concept of its free of pest nature but once again change in host brings change in the pests and many more related problems.

Dear Andras

This is very important issue about the IPM, actually i think that due to environmental changes in the world the ETL, EIL values for different pests has been changed. But there is no proper research especially in developing countries about the thresh hold level of different insect pests to have good IPM practice. I have been training mango and cotton growers on IPM and did many Farmer field school training on IPM but all the time farmers believe on chemical control. They can,t wait or they did not prefer for long time to manage pest through IPM or PAMS, Some time for the time being they will practice IPM then directly apply pesticide . Especially large growers have concept of IPM but don,t have belief .

Dear Shafqat,

I agree with you, ET and EIL values should be recalculated in each case and also the variables influenced by environmental factors if necessary. All this needs a lot of developing work and charges. Essential values such as EIL and forecasting methodology should be worked out by specialists or experts and growers can be educated even in the field how to calculate ET.

Dear Ansu, Rizwan and Sumodan,

I remember David mentioned earlier that transgenic technology influenced negatively IPM in the USA. IPM is a paradigmatic solution for sustainable agricultural production and conservation of our environment for a long term. IPM is open for everybody. Transgenic technology is a businesslike practice for a short term which contains the germs of a lot of troubles in itself because it does not respect values and rules of Nature. See only the continuous release of Bt toxin even without presence of pests or the spraying of the same herbicides in big quantities during a long time. Or the appearance and multiplication of sucking pests like Miridae as secondary pests and the resistant strains of Helicoverpa armigera or other pests. Certainly, GM plants are not free. What about the relationship of GM cotton and suicides of peasants in India? GM technology does not need EIL because e.g. in case of Bt crops release of Bt toxin is continuous.

Dear Andras,

I am from Nepal but currently residing in USA for my Masters degree in Entomology. With collaboration with FAO and other INGOs, Nepal Government and other institution have been conducting awareness program, farmers field school and plant clinics related to IPM and crop protection in farmers level in Nepal. Though synthetic insecticides are not in massive use here, but farmers are not aware about the safe use of pesticides. There are regular programs to aware about IPM and its benefits, but its practical application cannot be established. People still use insecticides and fact is they don't know the exact timing for insecticide application. Use of natural products as biological control against stored grain pest has been followed from ancient period in Nepal such as neem leaves. We cannot even think about rearing of parasitoid and inoculation to field. Using of commercial biocontrol techniques costs more and farmers cannot make profit out of that.

Hello Andras and Babu,

I think transgenics did set back IPM in field crops mostly because the neonic seed treatments were coupled with the seed by the companies that sold it. I am from a 5th generation family farm and my dad and brother are farming about 1,000 hectares in Michigan. I put myself through school as an IPM scout working through an extension office and covered my dad's farm for free of course and another couple of thousand hectares for other farmers. This was in the early 80s before trasgenics and we did not spray much for insects back then. Now with transgenics and neonic treated seed they are spraying at least once a season for armyworms, cutworms or other pests. Part of this is due to the university not training IPM scouts anymore and pesticide distributors make the recommendations and partly because they have disrupted the biological control of many predators with the neonic seed treatment. Check out my papers with Mullin, Leslie and Fleischer. Resistance is the main issue in tree fruit as Andras alluded to. Bt toxins in an annual crop are not nearly the issue they are in apples that last 35+ years.

Babu brings up something I have seen in Serbia and other areas in that biocontrol is always considered to be too expensive because they are talking about innundative biocontrol where the insect is being used as a short-residual biopesticide with no thought towards succeeding generations. This really only works in a highly artificial ecosystem like greenhouses, which can also afford the cost. Most of my career has centered on conservation biological control, which is theoretically at least free. Predatory mites like the T. pyri in some of my papers are the best example of it being cost effective for growers, but is somewhat misleading since in most systems it is a combination of several predators and parasitoids each attacking a different pest life stage to help regulate that pest even with only 25% mortality. Most people think a biocontrol agent has to be as effective as a pesticide, but in truth they help reduce the rate of increase of the pest population so that at the 25% level of mortality, the next generation is reduced by 44% like in compound interest in a bank. This mortality from biocontrol agents is also not selecting for pesticide resistance and can significantly delay the onset of resistance. The key has been using broadspectrum insecticides at key timings where they pest is susceptible as small larvae or eggs with a single degree day targeted application rather than trying to blanket the infestation with 2-3 blanket applications based on imprecise calendar day sprays where the insecticides are applied to more resistant larger instar larvae or non-susceptible stages like pupae. Much better is to use physiologically selective pesticides that target a Lepidoptera physiology such as Insect Growth Regulator insecticides, or a specific key pest like mating disruption for codling moth. Neonicotinoid insecticides are a good example of selectivity due to systemic absorption into the plant where it is eaten by the pest, but not available to the beneficial predators. Of course this systemic movement works against bees that ingest plant materials in the form of pollen and nectar.

Consider conservation biological control for both native and introduced pests because we have found native species will adapt over time, predators more quickly than parasitoids, to exotic new food sources Classical biocontrol has a bad history of non-target movement to other non-pest insects rather than the exotic pest.

In México depend of the agricultural zone. In the north the IPM is very well, in the center and south there is less control of the pest.

Hi I was interested to see the contribution from Zimbabwe as I was part of the Cotton Pest Research Scheme, centered at Gatooma, now Kadoma in the late 1950s. In 1959 we published a paper where we discussed various control options and said that chemical control had to be COMBINED with biological and cultural controls. We published at the same time as the famous paper in USA that introduced IPM. We later added scouting to time sprays and after I left there was an acaricide rotation scheme. Growers could attend a Cotton Training school on scouting so IPM, which did involve insecticides was being practised on a national scale. I venture to suggest that Bt cotton should now be introduced to minimise, if not avoid all sprays against bollworms, but scouting might still be needed in case the natural enemies do not keep the sucking pests numbers below a threshold. and a spray might be needed. Selection of GM cotton needs to be on a variety selected for a particular area such as Albar variety that enabled us to get high yields as it was jassid and black arm disease resistant. IPM needs a sound research background and information flow so that growers get good advice on how to prevent pests destroying their crops.

Unfortunately too often people adopt what is seen as the simplest approach, but as we have seen GM crops do need to be used carefully as part of IPM without over reliance on one control tactic. Having herbicide tolerant crops with so far only "Round-Up" herbicide has shown the disastrous rise in resistant weeds, so alternative strategies are needed.

For those unaware of the situation in Europe, IPM is now official policy even though true IPM systems have not been developed for all crop-pest control situations.

from Graham Matthews UK

Professor Graham Mathews was my lecturer at Imperial College between 1978-1979.

It is inspiring to hear his views. Iam a strong advocate of IPM in Zambia. We are making progress to make IPM an official policy in Zambia. The greatest difficulty is one of establishing economic injury levels and economic thresholds for different crops. I would appreciate receiving any papers on this aspects, from developing countries.

Phillip O.Y. Nkunika (Ph.D)

Dear Phillip, Great to hear from you. Are there specific crops/pests that you are working on. I can see if there is recent info to send you. I am still at Silwood Park so you can send me an email to [email protected]. I was recently in touch with David Munthali now in Botswana and Greenwell Nyirenda in Malawi. In Zambia I have been mainly in contact with two of the copperbelt mines re mosquito control - so IVM not IPM.

Best wishes

Graham

Dear David,

I think we desperately need people like your family members. Five generations in agricultural production is 125 years. This is history. I am sure our planet needs agriculturists who do not use the soil but live with it. These people are interested in sustainable agricultural production. 125 years! It seems to me, your family represents even a social integration: producers and a scientist.

Neonicotinoid insecticides are an interesting subject. After long years of using chlorinated hydrocarbons, organophosphates and pyrethroids Bayer Crop Science produced and marketed imidacloprid and its derivates. Regarding Leptinotarsa decemlineata populations in Long Island, the first resistant individuals appeared in 2000 after five years of spraying potato. Its application is easy, growers do not need to think. However, it is a persistent pesticide family which has many side-effects not only towards bees but other terrestrial and aquatic organisms.

I agree with you many people think biological control agents are like short-residual biopesticides and do not know on inoculative and conservation biological controls. Regarding exotic pests, inoculative biological control was very efficient (e.g. Prospaltella perniciosi or Aphelinus mali in Europe) but for native pests the importance of conservation biological control is enormous. Unfortunately, intensive chemical control with broad spectrum insecticides and acaricides kills these natural enemies. You put it out very clearly the mechanism of action of natural enemies which shows that a certain level of training and thinking is necessary for implementing biological control and IPM as well. And this is the disadvantage of the environmentally friendly control methods.

You mentioned calendar sprayings, unfortunately they occur even in Europe as a consequence of ignorance.

I think transgenic crops serve mainly as a business approach and only the production growth with a new kind of commercial method was important.

I feel IPM and biological control aim sustainability, environmental security and production and so meet our common interests.

Dear Professor Matthews,

I greet you in the name of the participants of this thread. I am glad you have honoured us with your professional experience.

With best regards,

András Bozsik

Sharing some news on a brand new global website featuring IPM information: the OECD's IPM HUB which was just published live online today:

http://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/integrated-pest-management/

The work in populating the site is in progress and you are encouraged to submit your contributions on IPM case studies of your interest featuring experiences from your own countries. If you wish, you can do so directly on the IPM HUB webpage: http://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/integrated-pest-management/ipm-case-studies.htm

thank you

Cezarina Kora

Dear Cezarina,

Thanks for the information.

Hii. I will talk about India. Let me first congratulate Bozsik for initiating this interesting and very relevant discussion. Yes we also, like many of the participant's experience, have included IPM even in graduate courses of some basic science besides professional agricultural and forestry for last 20 years. As a result of extensive extention programs for sensitizing users have made them informed. However, as is the case with Jimbabwe and any other country wwith agriculture as source of livelihood for many, socio economic status of the user and easy availability of dangerous chemical insecticide even in remote rural areas, govern the application of IPM. While I am working in forestry sectors, even agricultural counterparts have really done a great job by proper extension and education on IPM. In nutshell, government can only educate and promote but can't force the users to practice something which has direct impact on their livelihood. Environmental concerns come latter. Besides all the odds general awareness generated in recent past has shown encouraging results with some progressive farmers. I hope with more and more base line data generated, IPM will be adopted.

I will give an overview of the impact of the pioneer IPM promoting company In Kenya to the Horticultural sector ( Export fresh vegetable and cut Flowers).

Agriculture is the cornerstone of Kenya's economy employing over 75% of the population (IFOAM 2003). More than 50 % of export earnings and 24.5 % of GDP are attributed to agricultural products. Horticulture is the fastest growing sub-sector, contributing about10% of total agricultural production and employing approximately 2.5M people. Kenya supplies 25% of Europe’s cut flower market.

Pests and disease management are crucial factors limiting the success of the horticulture industry in Kenya. Overuse of pesticides had serious health and safety issues and localized environmental disasters which journalists and environmentalists had highlighted as bad practices in Kenyan horticulture production. With the stringent EUREGAP conditions imposed by EU, reference to amendment to EU directive 91/414/EEC,which lead to loss of less expensive broad spectrum product due to MRLs concerns. As a result there was resounding shift towards reduction in pesticide and fertilizer inputs and horticultural farmers turned to integrated pest management to secure markets for their produce.

Dudutech- A swahili word for Dudu- Insect and tech-Technology- practices what is dubbed as Environmentally Intelligent Farming. it was born as a great quest for an alternative pest control measure in 2001 when Leaf Miners had shown resistance to most synthetic pesticides available making it difficult to produce beans

The different arms of the company which makes IPM a reality includes:

A.) A team of Extension officers (Technical Liason Officers), located in all farms practicing IPM, they give advices on various agricultural practices e.g., setting up of IPM programs, use of BCAs, making spray programs vis-à-vis resistance management.

B). A team of accredited and qualified IPM trainers who train ingternal and external clients on several tailor made courses, including

a) A basic and advanced level of integrated pest management (IPM 1 & 2) for flowers and vegetables targeting managers, supervisors and technical advisors

b). Pest and Disease Identification, for pack house staff in flowers & vegetables

c). Safe and Effective Use of Pesticides, for spray men and spray supervisors

d). Principles of Fertilizer Application and Composting, for managers, supervisors, technical advisors and fertigators

e). General Pesticide Awareness for all farm workers

C). They produce arrange of Natural enemies parasitoids (Encarsia Formosa-Whiteflies), (Diglyphus isaea-leaf miner), Predators (Aphidius ervi-Aphids), Phytoseiulus persimilis-Red spidermites), (Amblyseius califonicus -RSM and A. cucumeris-Thrips(,(Orius spp.-Thrips), Hypoaspis-Thrips).

D). We also produce a number of Entomopathogens Like Beauveria bassiana, Lenanilicilium lecanii, Paecilomyces lilacinus, Steinernema feltiae other EPNS like Heterorhabditis and Phasmarhabiditis

E). For soil amendments and soil borne pathogen we use Arbuscular

Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) which helps in uptake of phosphorus, zinc and copper.

Trichoderma asperellum (Pythium, Phytophthora, Fusarium, Rhizoctonia, Sclerotinia)

F). For preservation of intrinsic soil fertility we use Compost (vermicompost and compost tea) which is made from Vermiconversion of organic wastes from flowers and vegetables which also helps in waste management..

Crops targeted -Vegetables-Beans, Broccoli, carrots, Sweet/baby corn, Strawberries, Cucurbits and peas,pepper and chillies,

Flowers include Roses, carnations, Gebera, Lillies etc.

NB/ Most success are registered by BCAs like P. Persimilis and D. iseae..which are self perpetuating once established ..so many farms have stayed for so many years without using any acaricides so long as vigilant scouting and monitoring is done and conditions are right to ensure conservation of the BCAs. Runners beans as well has proved impossible to produce without D. iseae against Leaf miners. Most growers make their own field insectries and do not need to buy from us anymore.

 Other services

 Laboratory services – Disease identification, Nematode ID and counts,

Recycling of farm waste – vermicompost.

Effluent analysis – irrigation, waste , domestic water & water bodies..

These products are used in almost the whole horticultural sector in Kenya, registration process is going on for their use in Tanzania and Ethiopia.

Most products are used the sister company in South Africa and most of the Biocontrol agents are exported to Europe through Denmark.

As a result most toxic chemicals have been eliminated or reduced to redundant levels,only low persistence chemicals which are compatible with BCAs are used. Production costs have been reduced by over 50%. The use of vermicompost tea has reduced fertilizer input by 40 %, growers’ get 20% more flowers, 5 % more stems length, first class foliage and larger heads.

Nice thorough answer Jacinter. Sounds very similar to US greenhouse flower production practices without the EuroGap headaches thrown in. Have you looked at using selective insecticides such as tebufenozide, methoxyfenozide, renazypyr etc. to control lep pests while conserving your biocontrol agents such as the Phytoseilus and Encarsia? Too many growers are still using the cheap toxic pesticides for control without considering the effects on the expensive beneficial insects they are releasing.

Dear Jacinter,

You have drafted a great success in the agriculture (horticulture) of your country which can be a good example for many other countries. Your description was really detailed and I could see that an important part of the population work in agriculture. It was interesting to read that you do not only use but also produce natural enemies even you export them. It means that your products must be qualified according to the very strict rules of European standards.

I would like to know how could you train so many excellent specialists working in the planning, implementation and management of IPM?

The production of natural enemies may be another crucial area.

I think also identification of pests and pathogens and recognising damage symptoms are quite a difficult job. It occurred often here on RG that only European specialists could identify some Asian pests and insects.

In Hungary the main trouble is the training of crop protection and IPM specialists who are able to do this very difficult brain work. As far as I know, not even David is really satisfied with the knowledge of some American crop protection practitioners. Are you, David?

I agree Andras.

Taxonomists are dying off without replacements being trained everywhere and teaching insect identification even at the basic family level is disappearing from many university course requirements. Some think everything has been identified already and can be found in picture guides on the web. Obviously those working with parasitic hymenoptera and mites no better, but there are few of them left. As we train more specialist learning molecular techniques, we tend to loose the basic knowledge level for PhDs that we used to have. More entomology departments are also following more the European model of Ph.D. students taking few classes and concentrating only the research at hand. I do not think this results in students with a broad knowledge of entomology that is necessary for implementing known IPM techniques, but even more importantly to adapt current IPM practices to accommodate changes due to invasive pests, regulatory changes in pesticides, and horticultural changes such as dwarfing tree rootstocks which may mean economic pest thresholds developed for hardier, large standard rootstock varieties may no longer apply. The current buzz word for agriculture is sustainability, which obviously means only organic since they not only don't spray but anything they do use is non-toxic. The most bee toxic material we have is the organic product spinosad and you don't worry about mites and predators in organic, because the 20 lb/acre rates of sulfur applied every 7 days in the eastern US for disease control is toxic to almost everything. Works in the deserts of the western US as long as you have irrigation water.

Anyway it is obvious we have to have teachers to train those that will put IPM into practice in the field, but over half the tree fruit research entomologist in the eastern US have not been replaced when they retired. And it is getting worse. I consider the lack of broad entomology training in new students (in areas such as insect identification or ecology) and the lack of faculty replacements in IPM to be the biggest impediment to IPM in the US. The lack of applied researchers that can modify or develop new IPM programs has even led to the near abandonment of IPM from some states where it used to be strong.

Dear David,

I thought always the USA is a powerful country which operates effectively and where education, science and research must be at a very high standard. It is sad that the supply and development of human force of such important fields like entomology, identification of arthropods and IPM are not provided properly. You put it accurately: “Taxonomists are dying off without replacement”. I feel this is because many think that molecular biological tools are suitable to carry out the vast job which was made by traditional taxonomists. These people can write some sophisticated articles but do not remember either the charges, the time necessary or the quantity of the job. I have found often that these molecular biologists had written long articles on their identification work and when they have shown a picture or a detailed description on the organism, insect or plant it turned out they decoded another organism. I remember an example here on RG when a researcher wrote to such authors about their errors and they answered her very rudely.

I think sustainability is right and IPM techniques are sustainable! However, too much sulphur may be deteriorating mainly mite natural enemies.

I have called for students for implementing over 100 entomological subjects as theses topics but these subjects needs systematic work so students do not like them and prefer the easy zero work-zero thinking themes like herbicide or pheromone tests.

Thanks for your kind words..Yes David Biddinger..we also use environmentally friendly pesticides, given the low damage threshold especially by the flowers ...I forgot to mention that we have a group of well qualified research and development team that is also accredited to conduct pesticide trials not only for the company and our customers but also for PCPB..the body that is responsible for pesticide registration and regulation in Kenya. They conduct intensive research on efficacy, compatibility with the BCAs, persistence of any new pesticide to be used or registered. We depend on their findings before using these products.

To Andräs Bozsik..this is a whole company with over 300 people with qualifications in various fields; entomologists deal with natural enemies production,microbiologist deals with biorational production, technical managers, trainers, extensionists, quality control team and consultants even in Europe especially Denmark which is our port for distribution of our products.

Development of these Biolines takes a long time, Identification of local BCAs in the locality is always encouraged since they work better for the local community.

Before commercial production of any product is done, samples are sent to taxonomists for proper identification of the products most of them are not in Kenya.

Again regulatory quality checks have to be done by KEPHIS to ensure we are producing the bio lines we are registered to produce and the the production units meets the standards

The products are registered as biopesticides by PCPB after a lot of research and strict quality control is ensured from the farm by the QC team before export and also at the airport before the shipment is sent out by KEPHIS.

The courses offered by Dudutech are are well structured to fit every need of the clients and at various levels of understanding, from pest identification, to implementation of IPM, and the use of pesticides with BCAs . Some are conducted in Swahili the national language or even in local languages to fit specific groups especially the Tea and Coffee growers who are also our clients from the recent past.

The materials for training are peer reviewed and accredited and trainers are also accredited.

The company also invests in taking its employees for a number of refresher courses relevant to their area of expertise within and abroad.

Dear Dr. András Bozsik:

In my short experience , IPM is an important tool for all economic pest for the Mexican state of Morelos; we are working with the following steps:

1. Correct pest ID

2. Monitoring pest populations, including determine natural enemies.

3. Building Economic Threshold (ET) and Economic Injury level (EIL).

4. Choice the best control methods

5. Evaluating the IPM program

6. Sharing results with farmers and local governmental agencies.

Is incredible, but today in 2013 there are many insect pest with wrong taxonomic determination!!!! This happen in sugarcane, Ficus carica, rice, and so on.

Recently we start to publish insect pest distribution using GIS tools, population fluctuation using pheromone baited traps, looking for parasitoids in many pest and we are short in time!!!!

IPM is not used by many local farmers because they ignore it!!! The principal control method remains in massive chemical pesticides; there are many factor behind pesticides use: limited training, cheap price, high availability …..

But this is changing because the new market demands: food safety and environmental impact of traditional farming.

Best wishes

Dear Jacinter,

Thanks for your answer. I am glad you are working so excellent in environmentally and sustainable agriculture in Kenya. I feel, we in Hungary and Europe should follow your example, your results and mainly the way you have implemented them. I consider it would be useful to organize a study trip in Kenya for our scientists and politicians. Can you propose me some articles and home pages where I can get more detailed information on this enormous evolution.

Dear Victor,

Many thanks for your description on the favourable process in IPM in Mexico. I believe the six points you presented are an excellent basis for your developing work. What you have written on fake identification of some insect pests occurs everywhere. David wrote recently that the number of arthropod taxonomists decreases in the USA but I think the situation is similar also in Europe. In case of sibling species but regarding hymenopterous or dipterous species identification is not easy. You mentioned that “looking for parasitoids in many pest and we are short in time!!!!” What does it mean?

I totally agree with David comment, there are many pest (Thysanoptera, Hemiptera -scale insects, treehoppers, cicadellids, mealy bugs, and so on!!!!) who need systematic work. Too many species and we are short in time (apologize my english).

Dear Bozsik

Check the website for Dudutech kenya...It is within Finlays Horticulture under SWIRE group/holding. I work for this company..I am in Germany on study leave. In 2010 my group of Norman Borlaug Fellows from parts of Africa and Washington State University-USA came for a visit.We were looking at possibilities of intergrating the BCAs in Organic farming practices, the experience was great. Our Directors are from Europe and our consultant and port is in Denmark. We always recieve several visitors from Europe where our flowers and vegatables are markated. I am willing to link your group with our director so that you see for yourselves what I can not put here in a better way.

In Chile IPM is really important as a result of an export oriented agriculture, specially in fruit and wine production. The best market require better products with higher standard of management and also low pesticides residual levels. As many producers sells their fruits or others agricultural products trough Packings (exporting companies) they must to achieve the higher standards of quality, stablished by the government (SAG officers check it in Chile) since the production could be exported to any market. Because it, our government through SAG continuously review the requirements in the most restrictive markets to define an standard which could fix for any market. Also, the traceability is a very important matter for the government, since it let you know where something was farmed and if there is a problem with a product you can track the origin area and to know the management used for it production.

Dear Jacinter,

Dear All,

Many thanks for your help. I have found some interesting home pages:

http://www.finlays.net/flowers/dudutech

http://www.advance-africa.com/DuduTech-Kenya-Ltd-Jobs.html

http://www.advance-africa.com/About-Us.html

I think this is an excellent and exemplary international collaboration which deals not even with IPM. I highly propose to everybody to visit these URLs!

Dear Andras,

This is indeed very good issue to discuss.

In Egypt, a notable interest has been shown to the use of IPM in agriculture upon many big agribusiness companies adopt exporting the Egyptian crops to the EU countries which subsequently needs a very strict pest management strategies as IPM. It would be definitely better if such concept was also addressed for the local consumed crops, but in fact this is not the case so far.

Dear Islam,

Thanks for your contribution to the subject.

Some years ago I listened to a presentation on the potato growth and its crop protection in Egypt. You are producing potato in great quantity also for the European market and Bacillus thuringiensis preparations are used against Gnorimoschema operculellum in order to avoid pesticide residues. Hopefully, this trend will be continued.

Dear Andras,

You are completely right regarding the use of the biopesticide formulations against Potato Tuber Moth (PTM) which considers a key pest to potato crop. Particularly promising is the fact that producing vegetables in huge greenhouse currently finds notable concern from the big exporters which also supports the possibility of using some IPM techniques, namely, various natural enemies (predator and parasitoids) to control some sucking insects. But again, the produced crops mainly exported to EU and rich gulf countries...not for local consumption. Interestingly, my lab in Egypt was involved in both projects (controlling PTM using some BT and virus formulations and also controlling aphid in pepper greenhouses using some predators as Chrysoprela carnea and different Coccinilids.