Crop Protection 51 - 15

Plant Health Management –

Insect Pest Control
IPM
Plant Health Management
Plant Health Management Strategies include a thorough
comprehension of all factors having an impact on the crop or
product one is trying to grow

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Plant Health Management
1. Market analysis:
- Question: What is the need for the production of this plant
product?
- You need to answer this question in order to know what
expenditures can be made in terms of plant health
management or disease control
- Assessment of both one time costs and contingencies

2. Resource analysis:
- One should assess one’s resources with respect to growing
healthy plants
- Pre-planting equipment and labour, harvest, post-harvest
and storage
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Plant Health Management
3. Site:
- May not be optional - What plant is conductive to a given
site (environmental factors)
- If optional – What factors, soil type, potting medium,
temperature, humidity, drainage, soil ph, water, etc. does
my selected plant need for health?

4. Pre-Planting:
- Soil preparation, sterilization, preventive sanitary measures
- Knowing previous field history (crops, pests, diseases,
flooding, pesticides, etc.)

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 Plant Health Management
5. Variety:
- Resistant varieties
- Varieties suitable for the site
- Often varieties are not optional but market driven
6. Monitoring:
- The footsteps of the farmer are the most important fertilizer
in the field
- Regular monitoring on a continuous basis during whole
cropping (daily assessment of plant health, water
requirements, weeds, growth stage, insect pest numbers,
disease symptoms, etc.)
- Early intervention is key to any health management strategy
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Plant Health Management
7. Applied controls:
- Chemical intervention as last resort
- Maintaining vigorous plants through adequate nutrition and
water are primary applied control
- Physical control, biological control
8. Nutrition:
- Adequate and appropriate nutritional levels are important
- Excessive Nitrogen levels producing very succulent and
soft tissue more prone to infestation
- But poorly fertilized plants are continuously under stress
(malnourished baby also more prone to attack of diseases)
- Avoid stress!
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Plant Health Management
9. Economics:
- Cost/benefit of any plant health management strategy must
be considered

10. Pests and Diseases:

- Regular Inspection, early detection and proper identification
are key elements of successful Plant Health Management
strategies

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
1. Regulatory Control Methods:
A. Quarantines:
• Insects introduced into an area in which they did not
previously exist might cause more severe damage
• Reasons:
- no opportunity for plants to develop resistance
- No existing predators, parasitoids or control agents
existing in this area
• Combat the problem of introduced insect pests
• Legal restraints to insect spread, state to state and within
country
B. Crop Certification:
• Voluntary or compulsory inspection system to assess
presence of insect pests in orchards (ocular inspections)
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
2. Cultural Control Methods
• Great enough distance to existing crops – crop isolation
• Movement to previously uncultivated fields
• Fallow, crop free period
• Planting wind breaks (many insects wind borne)
• Planting trap crops (cannabis, susceptible host plants)
• Use of insect free propagation material (vegetative, seeds)
• Elimination of alternate hosts
• Proper disposal of farm refuse (may serve as breeding
place for pests)
• Cropping pattern (staggered planting, synchronous plant.)
• Intercropping with repellent plants
• Crop rotation
• Planting time, plant spacing and row orientation
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
2. Cultural measures:
• Sanitation
- Consists of all activities aimed at eliminating or reducing
the amount of insect pests present
- Preventing the spread of the insect pest to other healthy
plants
- Example: ploughing fields, burning stubbles
• Water and fertilizer Management
- Avoid plant stress through drought or water logging
- Well balanced – organic fertilizer for soil improvement
• Soil Management
- See water and fertilizer management
• Shading

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
2. Cultural measures:
• Use of traps and mulches
- Silver plastic mulch has repellent effect on aphids and
thrips (virus-vectors) Reflectant mulches cease to
function as soon as the plant canopy covers them
- Sticky yellow traps (mainly monitoring of insect
population but to some extent also control)
- Pheromone traps
- Colored sticky traps
- Light traps

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
2. Cultural measures:
- Advantages:
- Pests can not overcome suppressive effects of cultural
control practices through the development of biotypes
- Most practices can be combined with other control tactics
- Most practices utilize resources available to small farmers
such as labor

- Disadvantages:
- Most methods reduce some pests but increase others
- Some practices decrease pest population but also reduce
yield
- Area wide practices require organization of farmers and
logistic supervision
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
2. Cultural measures:
- Full use of good cultural control methods requires knowledge
of the life history of the pest, its habits, crop hosts, life cycle
and the environment in which both host and pest coexist
- Farming practices must then be altered to minimize attack by
a pest and slow down or interrupt its reproductive cycle
- A good cultural control method is often economical but
seldom spectacular
- It requires good planning and implementation
- Some cultural practices have to be changed before the pest
damage becomes apparent
- Effectiveness can be greatly increased if done on an area
wide approach (all farmers planting a certain crop in a
respective area)

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
3. Biological Methods:
Natural or artificial suppression of pest populations by living
organism such as parasitoids, predators and disease agents.
It involves not only the introduction of natural enemies into
an area where they are absent, but also the augmentation of
those already present while not exerting the desired level of
economic control, and conservation of those existing
biological agents efficiently and economically regulating pest
populations
• Protection and preservation of naturally occurring beneficials
• Use and release of reared predators and parasitoids
• Use of disease agents
• Bacteria, e.g. Bacillus thuringiensis
• Viruses, Baculoviruses
• Entomopphagous Fungi, e.g. Metarhizium anisopliae
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
3. Biological Methods:
• Bacillus thuringiensis:
• Used as control agent for various lepidopterous pests
• Formulated as wettable Powder (WP)
• E.g. Thuricide, Dipel, Xentari
• Baculoviruses
• Larvae of many destructive insects are infested by eating
contaminated foliage
• When virus spreads in the larva’s body, host becomes
sluggish and stops feeding
• Turns whitish, than black, body fluid oozing from the
larval body
• Metarhizium anisopliae
• Used to control grubs of the rhinocerous beetle
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
3. Biological Methods:
• Advantages:
• Agents are often very selective
• Insect resistance is less evident than in the case of pesticides
• Ecosystem is less affected
• Parasites, predators and disease agents are non toxic to
humans
• Disadvantages:
• Difficulty in achieving the requirements for effectiveness
• Close synchronization of host and parasite cycles
• Predators and Parasites must be effective during growth
phase of host population
• Host population must be controlled before economic
damage occurs
• Climate must be conductive for the survival of predators
and parasites
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
3. Biological Methods:
• Disadvantages:
• Difficulty in meeting government regulations for viruses,
bacteria and fungi since these organisms must meet standards
set under the pesticide laws for labeling and use
• Viral and bacterial pathogens must normally be ingested by the
target insects
• Timing of spraying pathogen is often critical

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
4. Physical Methods
- Hand picking, (early detection is a must)
- Bagging, (example: stapled paper bags in amalaya)
- Scraping, (example: scraping of bark aids greatly in
controlling bark borers, for few trees only)
- Use of physical barriers (nets, fences, etc.)
- Mechanical implements for weeding (burning, rotavating)
- Plastic sheet houses, green-houses – controlled
environments
Control by heat treatment
- Soil sterilization by heat (steam sterilization, 30 min at
82 ºC)
- Hot water treatment of propagative organs (seeds, bulbs,
corms, nursery stock, e.g. seeds 11 min at 52 ºC, bulbs
3 h at 43 ºC)
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
4. Physical Methods
Control by heat treatment
- Hot air treatment of storage organs (curing) e.g. Sweet
potato at 28 to 32 ºC for 2 weeks (corn, onion, etc.)
Control by drying stored grains and fruit
• moisture content below 12 %
• Harvest of fruits later during day (no surface moisture,
storage under ventilated conditions
Control by Refrigeration
- Control of post-harvest diseases
- Low temperatures above freezing point inhibit or retard
growth of pests
Control by Radiation
• UV, X-rays, γ-radiation , opposed by consumer
organizations, not commercially used
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
5. Host Plant Resistance
- Some varieties of crops are more resistant to certain
pests than others, some are more susceptible/palatable
than others
- A variety is considered resistant if it produces a larger
amount of good quality crop than other varieties grown
under the same conditions and exposed to similar
populations of insects and diseases
- Resistance is an inherited characteristic that is due to one
or many different genes
- Immunity: plant is not attacked under any condition
- Hypersensitivity: invaded cells are killed so quickly that the
disease remains localized and can not spread throughout the
plant, which means that infected plants are largely undamaged

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
5. Host Plant Resistance
- Tolerance: Develop symptoms but the crop yield is higher than
of a susceptible variety. Ability of a plant to survive heavy pest
infestations without significant yield loss
- Antibiosis: the ability to induce detrimental effects on the pests
and thereby reduce damage by insects. Insects do not grow,
survive or reproduce well on the host plant
- Non-Preference = Resistance: Insects do not feed upon,
oviposit in or use a resistant variety for shelter

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
5. Host Plant Resistance
- Advantages:
- Require less pesticide applications
- Limit damage at various pest populations throughout
the cropping season
- Can be combined with other control methods in an
Integrated Pest Management Program
- Disadvantages:
- Often seeds are more expensive (demand,
development cost)
- tedious breeding process, but also selection on
Farmer level promising – Development of adapted op
lines
- Pest continuously evolving – constant breeding
efforts needed
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
6. Chemical Control:
• Classification according to target group
(insecticides, acaricides, …)
• Methods of application:
- Foliage sprays and dusts
- Seed treatment
- Soil treatment
- Wound treatment
- Postharvest treatment
• Mode of action:
- Stomach poison – must be ingested/swallowed
- Contact poison – gain entry through the integument/body wall
- Fumigants – gain entry through spiracles
- Ovicides – act against egg stage
- Systemic – are stomach poisons translocated inside the plant
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
6. Chemical Control:
• Toxicity and Hazard to user:
- Highly – red color band – Danger – Poison – cross bone skull
- Moderately – yellow band – Warning – harmful – cross
- Slightly – blue color band – Caution
- Relatively save – green band
• Chemical Nature:
- Inorganic Compounds – no longer used because of residual
persistence and high mammalian toxicity
- Organic Compounds – Botanicals (Natural Insecticides)
- Organochlorine Compounds
- Organophosphorous Compounds
- Carbamates
- Formamidines, Organotins, Antibiotics
- Pyrethroids
- Petroleum oils
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
 Insect Pest Control
6. Chemical Control:
• Botanicals:
- Natural insecticides, derived from plant materials
- Neem Extract: insecticidal, repellent, anti-feedant and
\growth inhibiting effect on many insect pests
watery extracts of leaves or seeds or neem seed oil
Neem is non hazardous to man and mammals
- Nicotine: alkaloid extracted from tobacco leaves
also strong neuro muscular poison in man and animals
- Pyrethrum: extracted from Crysanthemum cinerarifolium
powerful degradable contact insecticide with knock-down
action
very safe to man and mammals
- Rotenone: extracted from the roots of bean legumes (Derris)
also fish-toxic, short residual effect

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 Insect Pest Control
6. Chemical Control:
• Organochlorine:
- Also named chlorinated hydrocarbons
- Example DDT
- Mostly banned around the world
- High persistency in the soil
- Often low mammalian toxicity
• Organophosphates:
- Generally acutely toxic to man (red label insecticides)
- Non-persistent
- Example: Malathion (low mammalian toxicity), Hostathion
- Several have systemic action (Tamaron, Matador)
- To be replaced in the future or already banned

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

 Insect Pest Control
6. Chemical Control:
• Carbamates:
- Lower toxicity to humans (yellow label)
- Generally short residual activity
- Very broad spectrum effectivity as miticides, insecticides,
moluscicides, nematicides
- Examples: Carbofuran, Carbaryl
• Pyrethroids:
- Synthetic compounds, the chemical structure patterned after
Pyrethrum
- More prone to development of resistances than pyrethrum
(mixture of six different chemical substances)
- Low mammalian toxicity (several green label insecticides)
- Pyrethrum highly toxic to fish and bees (several synthetic
compounds as well)
- Later pyrethroids photo-stable e.g. cypermethrin, fenvalerate
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
Insect Pest Control
- Pesticide Formulations (total 71 codes)
- WP = Wettable Powder
- SP = Water Soluble Powder
- EC = Emulsifiable Concentrate
- DC = Dispersible Concentrate
- SC = Suspension Concentrate
- SL = Soluble Concentrate
- WG = Water dispersible granules
- SG = Water soluble granules
- GR = Granules
- DP = Dustable Powder
- ES = Emulsion for seed treatment
- DS = Powder for dry seed treatment
- SS = Water soluble powder for seed treatment
- WS = Water dispersible powder for slurry treatment
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
Insect Pest Control
Advantages:
- Easy to apply
- Readily available in the market
- Quick effect
Disadvantages:
- Development of resistant strains of pests
- Hazard from residues
- Hazards from improper handling
- Increase secondary pests because of the destruction of
their natural enemies
- Destruction of non-target organisms such as beneficials,
bees, fishes, birds, etc.
- High monetary costs of crop protection

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Insect Pest Control
Resistance to Pesticides
- Widespread and continuous use because of initial
excellent control
- Mode of action only single site (specific action) –
control only one or two steps in a genetically
controlled event in the metabolism of a pest
- Selection of resistant individuals from a population
or single mutation enough to develop resistance

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

Insect Pest Control
What is on the label

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

Insect Pest Control

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

Insect Pest Control

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology

Integrated Pest Management
Definitions:
• IPM is a pest management system that, in the context of the
associated environment and the population dynamics of the
pest species, utilizes all suitable techniques and methods in
as compatible a manner as possible and maintains the pest
population at levels below those causing economic injury
(UN ESCAP)

• IPM is a sustainable approach to managing pests by

combining biological, cultural, physical and chemical tools
in a way that minimizes economic, health and
environmental risks (USDA)

• IPM is a systematic approach to pest management which

combines a wide variety of crop production practices with
careful monitoring of pests and their natural enemies
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
Integrated Pest Management
Important Components:
• Information: is a fundamental component of IPM because
1. Understanding of the agricultural ecosystem is essential to
preventing pest problems
2. IPM relies on monitoring of pest populations in order to
determine when a population has reached an economically
damaging threshold
• Economic Threshold Levels:
Are developed from research that takes into account:
1. Physical damage caused by the presence of a pest at known
levels of infestation
2. The revenue losses resulting from that damage
3. The costs of treatment
• Monitoring:
pest populations to find out if ETL has been reached refers to
periodic sampling of pests in order to estimate population levels
Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology
Integrated Pest Management

Crop Protection 51 – Economic Entomology