U. Shankar

Integrated pest management : principles and practice

1. History, overview and principles of ecologically-based pest management 2. Integrated pest management for sustainable agriculture 3. Pest monitoring and forewarning 4. Conservation and augmentation of natural enemies 5. Biotechnological and molecular approaches in management of insect pests and diseases of crop plants 6. Botanicals in pest management 7. Biopesticides in ecologically-based integrated pest management 8. Entomopathogenic nematodes for insect control and slug-parasitic nematodes in integrated pest management systems 9. Microbial control of crop pests using entomopathogenic fungi 10. Microbial control of crop pests using insect viruses 11. Biological control of weeds with plant pathogens: classical and bioherbicide approaches 12. Virus-transmitting insect vectors and their management 13. Effect of pesticides on non target sites with reference to soil ecosystem 14. Integrated pest management in stored grains 15. Role of integrated pest management in food and nutritional security 16. Role of information technology in pest management 17. Challenges and opportunities for integrated pest management in urban landscapes.

Integrated pest management for sustainable agriculture.

This chapter describes the implementation of integrated pest management (IPM) in Australian cotton as an example of the broad strategic and tactical approach that could be applied to a range of field crops. The Australian cotton industry illustrates well the numerous challenges of integration and implementation of IPM and how these might be overcome. The key IPM components utilized in Australian cotton production are presented, i.e. pest-tolerant varieties, agronomic components (sowing date, water management and plant growth regulators), trap crops, predators, selective insecticides, rotation crops and transgenic crops. Some of the constraints and challenges to adoption of IPM principles in the extensive Australian grain industries (e.g. wheat, canola [rape] and legumes) where uptake has been minimal are discussed.

Pesticides, Food Safety and Integrated Pest Management

A rapidly growing human population has resulted in a demand for increased food production. In ancient times, traditional agriculture could meet human food needs when the size of human population was small. As human population grew, the demand for food increased, which was met by increasing the land area under cultivation. As the land resources became limited, efforts were made to increase productivity by fighting the losses inflicted by insects, weeds, and plant pathogens through the discovery of pesticides. At the same time, pesticides proved to be more dangerous due to their indiscriminate and excessive use, contaminating food (milk, honey, cereals, vegetables, and fruits) and the environment (ground water, soil, etc.), resulting in pest resistance, pest resurgence, and pest outbreaks. Consequently, the need arose for eco-friendly integrated pest management strategies to produce food safe from the negative impact of pesticide residues. The present chapter addresses information on the pesticide usage and their negative impacts on food safety leading to the development of integrated pest management (IPM). In this chapter, IPM for food safety through eco-friendly pesticides is discussed.