Biointensive Integrated Pest Management

Abstract

Biointensive IPM is defined as ‘A systems approach to pest management based on an understanding of pest ecology. It begins with steps to accurately diagnose the nature and source of pest problems, and then relies on a range of preventive tactics and biological controls to keep pest populations within acceptable limits. Reduced-risk pesticides are used if other tactics have not been adequately effective, as a last resort, and with care to minimize risks’.

Biointensive IPM incorporates ecological and economic factors into agricultural system design and decision-making and addresses public concerns about environmental quality and food safety. The benefits of implementing biointensive IPM can include reduced chemical input costs, reduced on-farm and off-farm environmental impacts and more effective and sustainable pest management. An ecology-based IPM has the potential of decreasing inputs of fuel, machinery and synthetic chemicals – all of which are energy intensive and increasingly costly in terms of financial and environmental impact. Such reductions will benefit the grower and society.

BIPM options may be considered as proactive or reactive. Cultural control practices are generally considered to be proactive strategies. Proactive practices include crop rotation; resistant crop cultivars including transgenic plants, disease-free seed and plants; crop sanitation; spacing of plants; altering planting dates; mulches; etc. The reactive options mean that the grower responds to a situation, such as an economically damaging population of pests, with some type of short-term suppressive action. Reactive methods generally include inundative releases of biological control agents, mechanical and physical controls, botanical pesticides and chemical controls.