There is an increasing concern that IPM research is too specific and short-term oriented while to contain crop losses due to pests (harmful organisms and plants to crops in sensu lato) we would need research based on system approach. What is your opinion?
Wholistic is often a paradigm for environmental interaction but molecular biology has got inside arguments that preclude simplicity like trascription and signalling or kinases. A single factor can activate or repress dozens of paths, and guest mutation rate can lessen any defence. It is probably a case of cost-benefit assay,. like in insurance maths. As an example for MAP kinase I would take a sample from RG https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232088238_MaHog1_a_Hog1-type_MAP_kinase_gene_contributes_to_stress_tolerance_and_virulence_of_the_entomopathogenic_fungus_Metarhizium_acridum
Article MaHog1, a Hog1-type MAP kinase gene, contributes to stress t...
Integrated Pest Management is by definition a systems approach. That is "Integrated" means looking at the whole system. Who is expressing this concern, and do the people who do so understand IPM? Alternatively, is the phenomenon that non-IPM approaches are being erroneously called IPM?
By definition, IPM is a system based pest management. It is not specific. You can include all aspect of control measure for maximum benefit in the system.
Integration does not exclude smaller scales like molecules. The cost-benefit applies to environmental footprint of control. Systemic is not holistic for me but probably IPM courses with molecular biology and genetic engineering are wrong.
Hi all,
Thomas, yes, you're right - in principle.
In reality, many papers labelled ( or labelling themselves) as relevant to IPM deal with a combination of measures (hence the I) to manage (hence the M) a single parasite or pest (hence the P) in a single crop and a single year/epidemic. However, a true IPM approach would probably need to be designed as a set of combined measures that would manage the whole pest complexes of all the crops entering a given rotation. Only then would IPM be truly systemic in scope, methods and results.
In practice, I know very few cases where more than one disease is dealt with on a single crop, and even fewer where the interactions between control measures on a given crop are reasoned relative to their consequences (good or bad) on the other crops in the system, beyond the next one. The closest we come to this is research in organic systems/landscape ecology with generalist predators of pests, and experiments with intercrops or mixed cropping systems (agroforestry being a good case study). These are still remarkably rare in the plant pathology/pest management literature, compared to the bunch of highly specific papers.
One of the key issues in this debate is also to define the 'system' that is being taken care of, and its spatial and temporal boundaries. I think the systems should at least be at the scale of one field over one rotation, but landscape ecology would probably lead to advocate bigger spatial scales ( including sets of neighbouring fields and field margins) and perhaps also longer time scales.
Best regards
Didier
Not all application is research, like in architecture. Any advance on IPM can be depicted by a series of arrows that interrelate the species in context and they are very specific if one wants to get progressive knowledge. I would not deprecate arts but this type of attempt to categorize fells within TLP class of phylosophy of language. Even if Prof. Khan and Prof. Pickett use the term 'Holistic' to describe the push-pull application, semiochemistry is the key of molecular attraction recognition in order to sustain the system.
IPM by concept is supposed to be holistic and sustainable and has been developed for several insect pests in a wide range of crops mainly to counter the drawbacks of relying on chemical insecticides. To your question I would say that specific IPM would probably target a single pest while holistic IPM would deal with the pest complex of a particular crop.
'holistic' is an unfortunate noun. Often to capitalize a problem of environmental impact we tend to evocate complexity as a counter side of specificity but this is often a misuse of practices. Population control depends on relative pressures, attraction and feeding. The whole is a variable. Geography and climate are specific
I fully agree with Thomas Bijorgman and his comments. IPM is a systems approach, having integrated all the compatible practices to reduce use of pesticides, while promoting the natural defense mechanism. Problem is most of plant protection workers are not having a uni-voice to definition of IPM as a result even adoption of 2-3 components are being called IPM practices.
Hi all
I don't think the quality of an IPM system is measured by the number of components that are integrated. To me, IPM is primarily an operational target - the goal is to control pests with as little pesticides as possible. If this requires only one component to achieve ( eg deploying a durable resistance gene or gene combination, or using seed sanitation, or preventing the persistence of infected material in the environment ), that's fine: the integration challenge then becomes to include this in a scheme that might control other pests as well. So I think systems with 2-3 components are legitimate IPM systems provided they have sufficient performance in pest control - and that none of the components be massive pesticide applications!
Didier
If a real Systems Approach will be applied for IPM, we will need to define the main arena of the system (i.e. our field), but it is inherent the need to define suprasystems influencing the system (i.e. landscapes and their +++ and ----), and the suprasystems doing so (i.e. pest-natural enemie interaction, soil-water-nutrient interaction), etc. And modeling will gain terrain again, as a real tool for management.
One issue that is coming up in the discussion is, "What is the definition of IPM?" Any time there is a popular (or fundable) concept, there is a great rush for people to adjust the definition to include whatever they are doing. That dissipation of the nomenclature is problematic, and underlies some of the discussion here.
There is a nice publication by Bajwa and Kogan (link below) that complied IPM definitions as of 2002. There were 67 of them!
Here is how IPM is described to practitioners in our program at Cornell:
"IPM is integrated because it brings together, or integrates, a range of biological, organic, cultural, mechanical, and chemical options for pest problems. And IPM is about more than just bugs—it’s also about fungi and mildew, bacteria, viruses, weeds, and wildlife, all of which can be pests if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it’s about management because you can only manage pests—you can’t get rid of them forever, no matter what anyone tells you."
(The New York State IPM program was an early center for this field, being founded about 1975 and legislatively established in 1985.)
www.ipmnet.org/ipmdefinitions
http://nysipm.cornell.edu/%5C/program/history.asp
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marcos_Kogan
Conversely funded IPM programs tend to hold closed doors. I suggest to get inside the origins of semiochemistry. Even if signals involve several actors without them IPM is reduced to a set of rules, to a religion.
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