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Edizioni ETS Pisa, 2010
S4.27
INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT: AN ENTOMOLOGIST’S PERSPECTIVE
R. Albajes
Universitat de Lleida, Centre UdL-IRTA, Rovira Roure 191, 25198 Lleida, Spain
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
It is widely agreed that integrated pest and disease
management (IPDM) is the most sustainable approach
for reducing crop yield losses due to arthropod pests
and diseases, an aim shared by both agricultural entomology and plant pathology. IPDM combines several
control methods in the most compatible way, taking into account the entire agroecosystem, other related
ecosystems and the general interest of society. Implementation of IPDM systems needs R&D in Plant
pathology and Agricultural entomology to be mutually
connected and to progress with a common objective.
This goal is analysed through the scientific and more
general literature produced by plant pathologists and
agricultural entomologists in recent decades. The term
‘integrated’ has been adopted to a greater extent by
agricultural entomologists although it is increasingly
used by plant pathologists. When the R&D on the most
relevant control methods for IPDM is examined, plant
pathologists focus on crop plant resistance whereas agricultural entomologists are more active in biological control, though the differences tend to diminish in recent
years. Surprisingly, cultural control is rarely mentioned
in either of the two disciplines. A comparison of the references to innovative tools for IPDM shows a relatively
low adoption by plant pathologists and agricultural entomologists with the exception of biotechnological
tools, which are more widely used by the former than
the latter. Economic threshold is a little used expression
in plant pathology publications. Finally, references to
nanotechnology in plant pathology and agricultural entomology publications are still few but significant considering the novelty of this field in science and technology development.
Contrary to the beliefs of many Europeans, farmers
must greatly increase crop yields in the next few
decades if they wish to meet all the stated demands. In
addition to producing food and fibre to satisfy an increasing world population, they are being asked to supply energy at reasonable prices. An increase in crop
yields may be achieved by maximising the proportion of
sunlight energy that is fixed by the crop plant or by reducing the amount of energy that is lost due to insect
pests, diseases and weeds.
These three causes are responsible for more than
50% of the potential yield of agricultural crops worldwide, though loss values are quite variable according to
the crop and geographical location of the crop (Oerke
and Dehne, 2004). Oerke and Dehne (2004) estimated
the efficacy of the control of arthropod pests, diseases,
and weeds, losses prevented by the use of control methods being 44.2%, 33.8%, and 70.1%, respectively. Significantly, they recorded the highest crop losses in those
areas in the world with the highest consumption of pesticides.
This apparent contradiction, more pesticide usage
leads to higher losses, forces us to question the sustainability of the methods used to prevent losses by insect
pests and plant diseases, particularly in view of the fact
that more exotic plant diseases and insect pests may be
expected to become established due to the increased international food and plant trade.
There is increasing awareness of the need to change
the strategy of controlling insect pests as a consequence
of both theoretical considerations and the practical collapse of control systems. In the mid-20th century, it was
seen that pesticides were not the ultimate solution due
to the problems they were increasingly creating: inefficacy because of development of resistance in target
pests, resurgence of secondary pest and disease problems, environmental impact on non-target organisms
and pollution, and negative consequences to human
health. Later, we found real solutions for pest and disease control that are more effective than just applying
pesticides. A set of control methods, the nature of
which is often very different and even antagonistic, are
Key words: plant pathology, agricultural entomology,
research, publications.
Corresponding author: R. Albajes
Fax: +34 973238301
E-mail: [email protected]
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S4.28 An entomologist’s perspective of IPM
Journal of Plant Pathology (2010), 92 (4, Supplement), S4.27-S4.34
being investigated by entomologists and plant pathologists for combined application in the framework of integrated pest and disease management programmes.
The term ‘integrated pest management’ and the comparable ‘integrated control’ were used by entomologists
as early as the mid-20th century to refer to the combination of several methods, initially biological and chemical
controls, to suppress insect pests. A formal and elaborate
definition of the term was published (Stern et al., 1959),
but it still focused on insects and mites. Today the term
is increasingly used so as to include arthropod pests and
diseases, and in many English language publications the
term ‘pests’ is indifferently applied to arthropods and
diseases. Unfortunately, the language often fails to reflect
the real state of affairs, as in the case of research and application of integrated pest and disease management.
The need to: (i) adopt a common strategy to control insects and diseases; (ii) manage agroecosystems to reduce
losses caused by them under common principles and (iii)
use the same language to transfer technology to growers,
has emphasised the different approaches of entomologists and plant pathologists to IPM.
In this paper, some of the most common differences
are pointed out between the approaches adopted by
plant pathologists and agricultural entomologists to do
research or to implement IPDM programmes in practice. To this end, the fundamental concepts, methods,
and tools of IPDM are monitored, at least from the
viewpoint of an entomologist, with respect to their use
in the scientific and more general literature on agricultural entomology and plant pathology. The association
of the conceptual term ‘integrated’ with the two disciplines will be first analysed, then the implication in publications will be reviewed of the three main control
methods in integrated pest and disease management, i.e.
host plant resistance, biological control, and cultural
control and, finally, the number will be compared of references related to innovative tools for IPDM in the
plant pathology and agricultural entomology literature.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
The data were obtained from the ISI Web of Knowledge. References were searched for in the Web of Science and in “all databases”. From the former, references
of only scientific publications in journals included in the
SCI were retrieved, whereas from the latter, references
were retrieved from both technical and scientific journals, including proceedings and other kind of documents and reports. The Web of Science includes texts
published in scientific journals included in the Science
82 Citation Index (SCI). ‘All databases’ includes the
same publications as the Web of Science plus other scientific texts published in journals not contained in the
SCI and more technical publications. Whereas from the
first database we expected to retrieve exclusively scientific references of high quality and originality, in ‘all
databases’ the references could deal with development
and technology transfer.
The evolution of reference numbers during the study
period may be the result of several factors other than real increase in R&D and technology transfer. For instance, an increase in the number of journals covered by
the databases will lead to a false increase in activity.
However, these and other potential causes are expected
to be similarly represented in the number of references
on agricultural entomology and plant pathology.
The agricultural entomology domain was defined with
the following descriptors: (insect OR arthropod OR mite)
AND (pest OR damage OR crop OR agriculture OR
injury). The first group of words includes most animal
taxa that cause damage to crop plants. Others, i.e. vertebrates and molluscs, are excluded but they may be considered as minor pests. Nematodes are considered closer
to disease-causing agents than pests in the strict sense.
The second group of descriptors relates the taxa of the
first group to their action on crops. For the plant pathology domain, the descriptors were: (plant OR crop) AND
(pathology OR disease OR pathogen). Here the main
taxa causing diseases on crop plants are not specified because they may be grouped under the term pathogen.
Three reference searches were made: the first dealt
with a conceptual term (‘integrated’), the second focused on how the two disciplines were sensitive to the
development of the three main control methods in the
framework of IPDM, and the third tried to investigate
the use of innovative tools for studying and applying
IPDM programmes.
In order to investigate the adoption of an integrated
approach in research, development and technology
transfer in agricultural entomology and plant pathology,
these two domains were crossed with the terms ‘integrated control’ or ‘integrated management’, which are
widely used nowadays. References from the two searches were split by decades to see the evolution of the
adoption of the term ‘integrated’.
The second search crossed the descriptors of agricultural entomology and plant pathology with the terms (i)
(resistan* OR toleran*) AND (host OR cultivar OR variety) to analyse the number of references related to
host plant resistance or tolerance; (ii) ‘biological control
OR biocontrol’ for this method, and (iii) ‘cultural control’ to study this method in relation to the two disciplines. In this third crossing, other terms such as ‘crop
management’ or ‘climate management’ were initially included but they introduced many false references in the
list and were finally omitted.
The third search crossed the descriptors of agricultural entomology and plant pathology with the tools
‘economic threshold OR injury level’, ‘biotechnolog*
OR molecular’, ‘GIS OR geographical information sys-
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tem’, and ‘nanotechnolog* OR nanopartic*’ to collect
references related to nanotechnology as an innovative
approach to IPDM.
The variable analyzed in each search was the percentage of the total references found for agricultural entomology and for plant pathology descriptors from 1970
to 2009 that contained the terms mentioned above in
the three searches. It was thus intended to remove as
much as possible the influence of the total number of
references for each discipline. Plant pathology yielded
about 2.5 times more references than agricultural entomology.
RESULTS
The term ‘integrated’ associated with plant pathology and agricultural entomology publications. Table 1
R. Albajes
presents a general view of how much the term ‘integrated’ is associated with plant pathology or agricultural entomology in scientific publications (Web of Science)
and in any kind of technical and scientific publications
(all databases) recorded in the Web of Knowledge database from 1970 to early 2010. The number of publications was about 2.5 times higher in the domain of plant
pathology than in agricultural entomology for the two
kinds of search. The term ‘integrated control’ or ‘management’ was more frequently associated with agricultural entomology than with plant pathology, being
found in 10.4% of scientific publications and 8.4% of
all publications for the former and in 2.3% and 0.3%,
respectively, for the latter. This difference could indicate
that the term was adopted earlier for insect pest control
than for plant disease control. However, in Fig. 1 it may
be seen that the term ‘integration’ was used as early in
agricultural entomology as in plant pathology although
Table 1. Number of references found in the ISI WEB of Knowledge with the crossed descriptors (1970-2010)
Associated terms
References related to
Plant pathologya
Agricultural entomologyb
Web of Science
All databases
Web of Science
All databases
None
33,248
428,132
13,249
172,461
Integrated control (A)
553 (1.7%)
13,130 (0.3%)
934 (7.0%)
13,705 (7.9%)
Integrated management 564 (1.7%)
(B)
12,375 (0.3%)
1,275 (9.6%)
13,422 (7.8%)
(A)OR(B)
13,773 (0.3%)
1,374 (10.4%)
14,435 (8.4%)
750 (2.3%)
a
Plant pathology includes the following descriptors: (plant OR crop) AND (pathology OR disease OR pathogen);
Agricultural entomology includes the following descriptors: (insect OR arthropod OR mite) AND (pest OR
damage OR crop OR agriculture OR injur*).
b
Table 2. Number of references found in the ISI Web of Knowledge with the crossed descriptors (1970-2009)
Associated terms
References related to
Plant pathologya
Agricultural entomologyb
Web of Science
All databases
Web of Science
All databases
None
32,490
(Resistan* OR
4,961 (15.3%)
toleran*) AND (Host
OR cultivar OR variety)
422,270
12,601
160,553
93,756 (22.2%)
1,135 (9.0%)
21,099 (13.1%)
(Biological control OR
biocontrol)
2,679 (8.2%)
35,743 (8.5%)
2,053 (16.3%)
40,980 (25.2%)
Cultural control
247 (0.8%)
14,170 (3.6%)
176 (1.4%)
6,562 (4.1%)
a
Plant pathology includes the following descriptors: (plant OR crop) AND (pathology OR disease OR pathogen);
Agricultural entomology includes the following descriptors: (insect OR arthropod OR mite) AND (pest OR
damage OR crop OR agriculture OR injur*).
b
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S4.30 An entomologist’s perspective of IPM
Journal of Plant Pathology (2010), 92 (4, Supplement), S4.27-S4.34
Fig. 1. Percentage of references on agricultural entomology (A) or plant pathology (B) with a scientific (Web of Science) or any
kind of technical or scientific content (all databases) that have the term ‘integrated’ (accompanied by ‘control’ or ‘management’)
as descriptors during the period 1970-2009.
it grew faster in the former, particularly from the 1990s
onwards. Significantly, the term ‘integrated’ was initially
more widely adopted by the non-scientific literature in
both disciplines (Fig. 1). It seems that scientists were
more reluctant to incorporate this locution in their publications than technical experts, even though the term
had been launched by scientists.
Since the 1990s the term has been adopted to a
greater extent by the scientific literature in agricultural
entomology, whereas in plant pathology it has always
been used more in the non scientific literature.
Control methods for IPDM in agricultural entomology and plant pathology. Many authors have shown that
the most innovative IPDM programmes aim at combining three main control methods, i.e. host plant resistance, biological control and cultural methods, to replace
chemical pesticides (Gullino et al., 1999, for protected
crops).
As seen in the previous section, all innovative pest
and disease control methods analysed in Table 2 were
referred to more often in the general literature than in
scientific publications. Control methods were 150 used
differently according to their nature. Host plant resistance or tolerance was referred to in at least 15% of the
plant pathology publications (except in the first two periods in the Web of Science database), whereas in agricultural entomology the figure rarely exceeded 10%
(Fig. 2a). On the other hand, biological control was
present in about twice as many entomology publications
as plant pathology publications (Fig. 2b). Surprisingly,
the terms ‘biological control’ or ‘biocontrol’ were
adopted earlier by the general than by the scientific literature. Contrary to expectations, cultural control was
referred to far less than the other two control methods,
with an average lower than 1% in scientific publications
in plant pathology or agricultural entomology (Fig. 2c).
References to cultural control are well established in the
general plant pathology literature and have increased in
the general agricultural entomology literature only in
the last few years.
Innovative tools for IPDM. Innovative tools for
IPDM were differently adopted by the scientific and the
general literature (Table 3). Only in the case of biotechnological tools was adoption high: 15% and 12% by
scientific and general documents in plant pathology and
7% and 5%, respectively, in agricultural entomology.
Percentages were far lower for the rest of the tools
examined. Even in the case of economic threshold, a
key tool for the application of IPDM, the percentage
was only about 2%. GIS and references to expert systems were particularly low, never reaching 0.5% of the
scientific or general publications for either of the two
disciplines. Even lower was the use of terms related to
nanotechnology, which was below 0.2% for both disciplines and databases (Table 3).
DISCUSSION
Much debate has been devoted to the cooperation
between agricultural entomology and plant pathology
research and application. Clearly, the two scientific disciplines differ in several points. They deal with relatively
unrelated taxa: whereas agricultural entomology mostly
deals with arthropods, a phylum of invertebrates, plant
pathology deals with microbes, mainly fungi and bacteria, and viruses.
Nematodes could be closer to plant pathology because of the relationships with hosts but closer to agricultural entomology because they are invertebrates. The
descriptors used in the present review did not include
nematodes in any of the disciplines but they would fall
within the plant pathology field because the authors
consider the action of nematodes to be a disease. Another difference between the two disciplines reviewed
here lies in their different relationship with the plants
affected. Plant pathologists focus on the consequences
of pathogen action on the host plant, the disease,
whereas agricultural entomologists focus on the insect/mite itself or its populations and rarely include the
plant affected by the pest in the research (a phenome-
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R. Albajes
S4.31
Table 3. Number of references found in the ISI Web of Knowledge with the crossed descriptors related to innovative tools for IPDM (1970-2009)
Associated terms
None
References related to
Plant pathologya
Agricultural entomologyb
Web of Science
All databases
Web of Science
All databases
32,490
422,270
12,601
160,553
84 (0.3%)
2,686 (0.6%)
265 (2.1%)
3,053 (1.9%)
4,803 (14.8)
50,433 (11.9%)
890 (7.1%)
8,768 (5.5%)
GIS OR geographical
information system
57 (0.2%)
363 (0.1%)
45 (0.4%)
370 (0.2%)
Expert system
36 (0.1%)
335 (0.1%)
44 (0.3%)
228 (0.1%)
Nanotechnol* OR
nanopartic*
12 (0.04%)
65 (0.2%)
4 (0.03%)
23 (0.18%)
Economic threshold
OR injury level
Biotechnolog* OR
molecular
a
Plant pathology includes the following descriptors: (plant OR crop) AND (pathology OR disease OR pathogen);
Agricultural Entomology includes the following descriptors: (insect OR arthropod OR mite) AND (pest OR
damage OR crop OR agriculture OR injur*).
b
non that has been changing in recent years). The famous host-pathogen-environment triangle, described in
the first pages of any plant pathology and disease epidemiology manual (Agrios, 2005) is poorly developed in
texts on agricultural entomology and insect pest population dynamics. The academic background of plant
pathologists, often closer to plant sciences than that of
entomologists, may additionally explain the attention
paid to the host crop plant by the former. As a consequence of these basic differences between agricultural
entomology and plant pathology, the approaches and
methods used by the two disciplines are also different.
Though differences between plant pathology and agricultural entomology can be understood in the framework of their scientific fundamentals and methods, it is
more difficult to justify why these differences affect the
development and application of control programmes, as
shown in the present review. From a conceptual point of
view, the use of the term ‘integrated’ is crucial to the objective of combining several methods in a compatible
and previously planned way. Many texts on agricultural
entomology and plant pathology underline the need to
integrate strategy and methods to achieve a more sustainable and efficient control. However, the term ‘integrated’
accompanied by ‘control’ or ‘management’ is little used
in the references dealing with the two disciplines. The
term ‘integrated control’ was introduced into the scientific literature by both disciplines early in the study period: its first formal formulation was published in late
1950s (Stern et al., 1959). However, it was used only in a
low percentage of publications, particularly in the plant
pathology literature. In this discipline, the percentages of
references to the term ‘integrated’ was about three times
lower than in agricultural entomology and the difference
increased during the study period to about 5 times in recent years. When these figures are examined in the references obtained from all databases, the difference between the percentages of references to ‘integrated’ was
lower (less than 3%). It seems therefore that the literature dealing with technology transfer on disease control
has adopted the term ‘integrated’ to a greater extent than
the scientific literature in plant pathology. This can also
be seen in the comparison of percentages of references to
the term ‘integrated’ obtained through the Web of Science and all databases. The term was more frequently
used in the general than scientific literature. This was also the case of agricultural entomology literature in the
early periods studied, though in the 1990s and 2000s the
scientific literature was more active than the general literature in using the term ‘integrated’.
In the present study all the references were not systematically examined but rather a random sample of
references (an average of about 10% of the references
in the last two decades) was used to check that most references selected used the term ’integrated’ as a combined control of several arthropod pests for agricultural
entomology or several plant diseases for plant pathology. Very rarely was the term ‘integrated’ used to refer to
controlling both arthropod pests and plant diseases. A
more detailed study could determine the percentage of
references that refer to integrated methods for controlling both plant diseases and arthropod pests.
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S4.32 An entomologist’s perspective of IPM
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Fig. 2a. Percentage of references on agricultural entomology (A) or plant pathology (B) with a scientific (Web of Science) or any
kind of technical or scientific contents (all databases) that have the terms (resistan* OR toleran*) AND (host OR cultivar OR variety) as descriptors during the period 1970-2009.
Fig. 2b. Percentage of references on agricultural entomology (A) or plant pathology (B) with a scientific (Web of Science) or any
kind of technical or scientific contents (all databases) that have the term ‘biological control’ or ‘biocontrol’ as descriptors during
the period 1970-2009.
Fig. 2c. Percentage of references on agricultural entomology (A) or plant pathology (B) with a scientific (Web of Science) or any
kind of technical or scientific contents (all databases) that have the term ‘cultural control’ as descriptor during the period 19702009.
Of the three methods for controlling diseases or insect pests, host plant resistance was mentioned more in
plant pathology, biological control in agricultural entomology, and cultural control in similar percentages by
the two disciplines. Host plant resistance has been the
preferred method for controlling plant diseases, whereas it has been less studied in insect pest control and this
was detected in the present review. References in the
Web of Science dealing with plant pathology used the
term ‘resistance’ or ‘tolerance’ about 1.7 times more
than those dealing with agricultural entomology in the
last few decades, when most references were found. A
similar mean percentage, although more variable, was
recorded in the references retrieved from all databases.
The increasing trend in the number of references related to host plant resistance observed in all databases
contrasts with the fairly stable number observed in the
Web of Science over the two last decades in agricultural
entomology and plant pathology.
Unlike host plant resistance, biological control showed
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a higher percentage of references in agricultural entomology than in plant pathology in both the Web of Science
and all databases. However, the differences between the
two disciplines in the number of references from all databases dealing with biological control have been decreasing in the two last decades: whereas the percentage has
decreased in agricultural entomology it has been increasing in plant pathology during the whole study period.
This probably reflects the fact that plant pathology is increasingly adopting biological control, whereas in insect
pest control the application of biological control is rather
stable or even decreasing in relation to other control
methods, as confirmed by the increasing number of commercial biocontrol agents of plant diseases.
More surprising is the low percentage of publications
devoted to the study and use of cultural controls against
insect pests and plant diseases. The influence of the abiotic environment on the development of insect populations and plant disease epidemics has been known for
many years. Crop and climate management is a practice
that has been used for centuries to manipulate the crop
environment in order to diminish the incidence of insect
pests and diseases on yield. Furthermore, many plant
pathology and agricultural entomology publications deal
with the effects of abiotic conditions on biotic agents. To
translate all this knowledge to pest and disease control
does not seem very complicated, even if one considers
the difficulty of modifying the climate experienced by the
pathogen or the pest. Some of the common cultural practices have a strong impact on temperature, humidity,
wind and other climatic parameters, and could be selected for their negative consequences on pests and diseases.
Cultural practices may also be designed to influence other abiotic conditions (fertility, soil pH and aeration) influencing crop losses due to pests and diseases. It is difficult
to say why more research efforts have not focused on
such important components of IPDM. Perhaps it is because there is an uncovered interphase between basic research and the development of scientific results oriented
towards implementing IPDM programmes. A major involvement of agronomists in R&D in plant pathology and
agricultural entomology could help covering such aspects
of cultural control. Many times in my life at the university
I have had to remind agronomists that biotic agents are
responsible for a high part of the yield; their lack of
knowledge of pests and diseases tends to be a barrier to a
more cooperative research.
Among the innovative tools for implementing IPDM,
only biotechnological or molecular techniques are significantly referred to in publications of the Web of Science or all databases. They are clearly used more in
plant pathology publications, reflecting the fact that this
discipline has adopted biotechnological tools much
faster than agricultural entomology. Disease diagnosis is
one of the most common biotechnological applications
in plant pathology, and also pathogen population and
R. Albajes
S4.33
epidemiology studies increasingly use molecular techniques. On the other hand, agricultural entomology
more rarely uses molecular tools to differentiate arthropod species or biotypes. It is noteworthy that the percentage of references to biotechnology-related terms
was quite close in publications retrieved from the Web
of Science and from all databases.
In contrast, far lower percentages are recorded when
other tools that are more linked to the application of
IPDM are examined. Economic threshold is a key element in IPDM for making decisions on the basis of
cost-benefit analysis for disease and pest control (Higley
and Pedigo, 1996). However, only about 2% and fewer
than 1% of the publications refer to the term ‘economic
threshold’ in agricultural entomology and plant pathology, respectively. Whereas the percentage of references
was quite similar in the Web of Science or all databases
for agricultural entomology, it was 2.5 times greater in
all databases than in the Web of Science for plant
pathology. It seems, therefore, that economic threshold
is rarely a research topic, particularly in plant pathology,
though it is more present in the more general literature.
In the framework of IPDM programmes, geographical
information systems are usually applied with an areawide perspective, a requirement for a more efficient
control of many arthropod pests and diseases that have
a high capacity to disperse over long distances. However, this expression or its acronym GIS are hardly used in
agricultural entomology or plant pathology literature,
probably reflecting a lack of interest of entomologists or
plant pathologists in this part of IPDM application. The
term ‘expert system’, an interesting tool for decision
making and particularly for training (Mumford and
Norton, 1993), showed practically the same figures. Expert systems help students or technicians to understand
how decisions are made, which inputs are needed to
make decisions, and which algorithms link the inputs
and the decisions; furthermore, they can often be used
to simulate different situations and consequences in order to adopt alternative decisions. All these applications
may stimulate a faster adoption of IPDM methods.
Finally, nanotechnology is a field that has been developed quite recently but with a small but significant
amount of references by plant pathologists and agricultural entomologists; it could be an example of horizontal
transfer of knowledge among science and technology
fields.
In summary, a review of the number of publications
retrieved from scientific and more general databases using significant terms referring to concepts, methods and
tools has shown some differences in research and application of IPDM in disease and pest control. The term
‘integrated’ is mentioned in a significant number of
publications, although it is used more in agricultural entomology than in plant pathology. However, the number
is probably far lower if only references dealing with in-
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S4.34 An entomologist’s perspective of IPM
Journal of Plant Pathology (2010), 92 (4, Supplement), S4.27-S4.34
tegrated control of both diseases and pests are selected.
Control methods that may be combined in IPDM programmes are referred to with different intensity by plant
pathologists or agricultural entomologists: whereas the
former focus on host plant resistance, the latter focus on
biological control methods. However, the differences
seem to have decreased in recent years. References to cultural controls are rare in both disciplines, a surprising result taking into account the high amount of knowledge
that is now available on the influence of climate and other environmental conditions on the amount of diseases
and pests; this result may be due to difficulties in translating this knowledge into applicable IPDM methods.
Finally, references to significant innovative tools for
the application of IPDM programmes are low in both
disciplines, with the exception of biotechnological and
molecular tools, which are referred to in particularly
plant pathology publications. A more thorough review
of the content of the selected references should allow a
more detailed analysis of the differences in the progress
of plant pathology and agricultural entomology research
and application.
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Gullino M.L., Albajes R., Lenteren J.C., 1999. Sustainable
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Higley L.G., Pedigo L.P, 1996. Economic thresholds for Integrated Pest Management. Lincoln Press, Lincoln, NE,
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