1.0 INTRODUCTION
Nowdays, we are enjoying our lives with greater technology advancement like modern facilities and equipment that can be used especiall in agriculture sector. Do we know what the current technology that can be used in crop protection department in order to preserve or increase the quality and yield of the planted crop? Crop protection is known as the department that relates with the practices on managing the plant pest and disease, weeds and living pest like vertebrate and invertebrate. There are 3 main area have to be focused in crop protection such as in protecting yield by controlling pests, weeds and disease, increasing the yield by implementing the good agriculture practices (GAP) and also improving yield quality by producing crops with enhanced composition such as oils, proteins and vitamins.
Pest is an organisms that cause damage or illness to man and destroy crops and yield. Pests range from microscopic organisms such bacteria to large animals such as elephants. It can be categorised into six type of groups such as insects, molluscs, plant disease agent, vertebrates, weeds and nematodes. There are factors that contributing to development of pest status which is based on their biological, ecological and economic factor. When each of these factors begin to give big effect to the growth of the pest population, it means a lot of trouble to the farmers as it will increase the infestation rate of pest in that particular area and also the yield will decline.
People nowadays especially the smallholders or small farmers willing to take fast solution and easy action in term of managing their pest with use the incorrect dosage and improper application of chemical pesticide to control all the pest. They should know that it will bring the environmental and human health risks. The improper chemical control will lead to the resistance of pest toward particular pesticide and also become immune with the chemical control will give result the pest grow rapidly.
Usage of pesticides is very intensive without taking into consideration its toxic effects. In order to suppress pest population below the Economic Threshold Level (ETL), the crop protection has come up with a better way to keep pesticide and other interventions to level that are economically justified and minimize risks to human health and the environment which is known as the Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM ‘ is a science-based, decision-making process that identified and reduces risks from pests and pest management related strategies.
2.0 INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT
2.1 Definition Of Integrated Pest Management :
Integrated Pest Management focuses on the management of pests, relying on knowledge of biology to make tactical decisions, taking risks to health and environment. The intergrated pest management give explanation about the grow of healthy crop without possible disruption toward agro-ecosystem and at the same time minimize the risk toward human health and the approach of protection that combine different management strategies to minimize the used of pesticides in crop field. IPM as a sustainable approach to managing pests by combining cultural, physical, chemical and biological control in a way to minimizes environmental and human health risks. IPM provides an effective strategy for managing pests in all areas from developed agricultural, residential, and public lands to natural and wilderness areas. IPM also provides an effective all encompassing, low-risk approach to protect resources and people from pests and disease.
2.2 Methods Of Pest Management :
‘ Inspection
‘ It is important to detect the presence, concentration and type of pest. The inspection process involves a regular and methodical procedure.Field observation are used to make intermediate IPM decisions as well as record part of the field’s history for making rational decisions in the future.
‘ Identification
‘ It is essential to identify pests and to have an understanding of pest biology. Properly identifying pests is an important aspect of inspection. This step help in keep pests in check. There are some organisms are necessary in one environment but become unwanted in another. For example, certain insects, such as Syrphid flies maybe abundant in a field but does not cause crop damage. Other example, termites are essential decomposers and recyclers of wood and other cellulose-based material in nature but in a building, termites become a pest and damaging the crop.
‘ Monitoring
‘ Analyze information obtained from inspection and pest identification are used to determine the need for particular pest control. Many organisms do not ahieve pest status unless sinificant numbers are apparent. The economic threshold plays an important role in IPM decision which is when agriculture pest exceed ‘threshold’ values, the result is lost profit due to a reduction in crop quality or yield. Some agriculture pest have lower thresholds tied to health concerns but poses no sinificant problem.
‘ Implementation
‘ When the organism has been identified and is present at numbers determined to be a problem to crop or plant, management methods ar used to reduce the population of pest levels below economic threshold levels.Intergrates several different pest management strategies when possible. Once the management strategies has been selected, it should be employ or take action in a timely manner. Example: Cultivation or using herbicides to control weeds must be done at the proper stages of development of the weed and crop for the greatest impact.
‘ Evaluation
‘ This step involves pest management strategies that used whether work or not. Comparison between before and after implementation of IPM strategies of control pest activity. Review what went wrong and what went right. Was the pest properly identified? Was the field sampling unbiased? Was the choice of control based on sound judgment or outside pressure? What changes to the system would make it better?
2.3 Types Of Pest Management
Effective pest management is essential to the economic vitality of agriculture. In managing the pest inside the plantation area, there are different kinds of method that can be used in order to control the infestation rate of the pest. Integrated pest management (IPM) strategies are being develop and implemented that combine biological, cultural, physical and chemical control tactics to minimize economic, environmental and human health risks. Each of these method can be integrate together in order to reduce the use of chemical pesticide-only method. The control methods are consist of the following categories:-
2.3.1 Physical Control
Physical control are usually more practical for small gardens and can be effectively used in combinations. Physical control means controlling disease and pest using of hands on techniques as well as simple equipment, devices and natural ingredients that provide a protective barrier between plants and insects. Some methods alter the physical environment to make it unfavourable to pests. Physical have relatively little impact on natural enemies and other non-target organisms and are compatible with biological controls. They can be rapid and effective, and are well suited for the home landscape.
Control Measures Include:
‘ Hand-picking
– The use of hands-on techniques as well as simple equipment, devices, and natural ingredients that provide a protective barrier between plants and insects.
– Removal of insect and egg masses ensures quick and positive contrrol.
– Effective with foliage- feeding insect such as Golden Apple Snail (GAS), hornworms and bean beetles.
‘ Application of sticky traps
– Used in two ways which is to trap the insect to lower crop damage and what species of insects are in the garden or farm.
– appeal to an insect’s nedds for food, shelter, and repoduction.
– Example: stcky barrier, which can be place on trunks of trees and woody shrubs to prevent crawling insects from causing damage to plant.
– Anoher trap is sticky paper. The paper used attract insects because of its color or because of a sex pheromone in the sticky substance that attracts the insect or pest.
‘ Insect vacuum
– Insect vacuum is to remove pest from plant.
– Insect vacuum also remove crawling insect or insect eggs.
– The vacuum nozzle is placed directly on plant toward strong or thick leave.
‘ Water pressure sprays
– Is a forceful steam water to remove the insect such as aphids from stem or foliage. It must apply repented because the insect will likely to come again.
– Water pressure spray must use on sturdy plant to avoid damage on it.
– To avoid other disease like frequently use so spray it on morning so that the plant will dry quickly
‘
2.3.2 Cultural Control
Defined as manipulation of cultural practices so as to destroy the insect or to prevent them from causing injury to plants. The purpose is to reduce pest populations or avoid pest injury to crops. This is inexpensive preventive control through simple modification of pest’s encironment.
‘ Traps crop
– Used either to prevent or divert insect attack from the crop risk by using more attractive food source.
– The trap crop usually destroyed before the insects reproduce.
– Ex. Onion and garlic intercrop with sugarcane and in other crops and have observed to reduce the pest incidence.
– Trap crop are only effective if N. viridula are controlled in the trap crop to prevent them spreading into adjacent or main crop (McPherson and Newsom, 1984)
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‘ Pest resistance crops
– GM crops that been genetically modified so they are toxic to certain insects.
– Called Bt crops because the introduced genes were originally identified in a bacterial species call Bacillus thuringiensis. These bacteria produce a group of toxins called Cry toxins.
– It is a very important tool in pest management programs and the use of plantvarieties resistant to particular disease has proved to be very effective (e.g. for wheat stem rust) (Gisi and Leadbeater S4.13, 2010).
‘ Field sanitation
– To minimize the possibilities of outbreak damage of crop by pest or insects.
– Orchard sanitation was achieved using an Augmentorium (Klungness et al., 2005). This is a tent-like structure that sequesters fruit flies that emerge from fallen rotten fruits collected from the field and deposited in the structure, while at the same time conserving their natural enemies by allowing parasitoids to escape from the structure through a fine mesh at the top of the tent. (B.W. Muriithi et al., 2016)
‘ Crop rotation
– Rotating the field to a different type of crop can break the cycle.
– Discontinuity in the supply of food.
– Ex. In rice plantation, make a crop-free period by planting with other short-term crops as they also provide nitrogen to the rice fields.
– Enable the farmers to earn extra income.
2.3.3 Biological Control
Biological control methods can be effective in certain situation. Biological control method in the Integrated pest management (IPM) we know that they are more focused on long-term prevention of pest. The pesticides are used only after monitoring indicates they are needed according to established guidelines, and treatments are made with the goal of removing only the target organism. Biological control is the use of living organisms to reduce the pest or insects population. It is the oldest non-chemical control methods used in agriculture.
The types of natural enemies can be divided into 3:
i. Parasitoid
– Insect that lay their eggs on or in the body of an insect host, which is then used as a food for developing larvae. The host is ultimately killed.
– Insect parasitoid can develop on the inside or outsie of the host’s body.
ii. Predators
– Species that directly kill and feed on several to many individual prey during their whole lifetime.
– Many species of amphibians, birds, mammals and reptile prey extensively on insects.
– E.g. Ladybugs are predators of aphids, mites, scale insects and small caterpillars.
iii. Pathogen
– Pathogenic micro-organisms include bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa and viruses that can infect and kill the host.
– Eg. Bacillus thuringiensis is the most widely applied species of bacteria used for biological control used to control Lepidopta, Coleoptera anf Diptera.
– Populations of some aphids, caterpillars, mites, and other invertebrates are sometimes drastically reduced by naturally occurring pathogens, usually under conditions such as prolonged high humidity or dense pest populations.
2.3.4 Chemical Control of Pest
Chemical control are known to the usage of pesticides or chemical compounds such as insecticides, pheromones, baits and attractants. Can provide effective pest control but only a s a last option. Pesticides often play a key role in pest management programs and frequent may be the only control method available. Using a fungicide may provide immediate, short term protection against microorganisms.
The usage of chemical pesticide must be the last choice of control method in the pest control management as IPM is one of the main objectives to use less chemical to the surrounding in order to preserve the environment. We know that chemical is effective against the pest but we still need to avoid all of the drawbacks that might happen if the usage of chemical is exceeding the amount of needed which will cause the pest to be immune to that particular chemical. They need to use more non-chemical method in order to achieve the below Economic Threshold Level (ETL) so that the minimum control can be use to avoid the increasing population of pest and damage to crop or plants.
2.4 Importance of IPM
1) Increase profit
– Increase source, for example, mechanical development, pesticides, manures and culturing costs cash. By utilizing best management practices to apply these sources of info when they are really required, producers can lessen costs indiresctly maximize the profit.
– Weed and nuisance administration required controls at the opportune time to increase the advantages of the practice.
2) Concerned the environment risks in our life.
– By utilizing mechanical development, pesticides, composts and culturing just when vital, cultivators secure nature, by diminishing silt, and contaminated overflow from entering our lakes, streams and waterways.
– To reduce environmental contamination and cost. Also minimize pesticide pollution of soil, ground water, surface water, wildlife and endangered species.
3) Maintaining a balanced ecosystem
– Ecosystems are comprised of living and non-living components that are give effects of one species within the system or other species (positively or negatively) due to the reliance at different trophic levels. Ideally, and in many cases this is true, functional redundancy is present within a system, and organisms can adapt as the ecosystem evolves and species composition change at different trophic levels. Using chemical controls can reduce pests, but may also reduce species of organisms that reduce pest species themselves within the ecosystem. By using an IPM approach, we aid in maintaining ecosystem stability while controlling pest problems.
4) Reduce risk
– Pest management results in less pesticide application, using the safest and most effective formulations. This is to minimizes the dangers associated with pesticide application, including accidents, drift, and toxic effects on non-target species and wildlife.
5) Delays resistant pesticide
– Utilizing similar substance control again and again brings down the viability of the control on pest, infection and weed pest. By browsing all trustworthy control techniques, including biological, advantageous living begins and turning among vermin control strategies, resistance can be abolished or deferred.
2.5 Strategy To Encourage Growers To Implement IPM For Controlling Pest And Disease Outbreak
i. Awareness-raising campaigns
‘ Aims to attract the smallholders or growers attention towards sustainable approach to Intergrated Pest Management to minimizes health and environment risks.
‘ This campaign also give information to be more detail and clear towards necessary of IPM.
ii. Provide proper attentation to the social environment.
‘ Spreading of IPM knowledge is essential among small farmer to avoid the usage of chemical control as alternative to control pest population. The farmers need to know the serious effect to environmental, health and economic.
‘ Make the chemical methods as the last option to decrease the pest and disease outbreak regarding the risk of economic, environment and health.
iii. Introduce the grower with resistant material or varieties that integrate with IPM.
‘ They expect the resistant material give benefit to their future industry in agriculture.
‘ This strategy indirectly will influence the smallfarmer to adapt the pest management practice.
iv. Strategic communition to promote IPM among growers.
‘ Communication skill is necessary in implementation of IPM techniques to promote to the growers.
‘ Communication ability and confidence is impartant part to persuade the famers.
v. Develop proper farming system
‘ At 1991 Linking Environment and farming (LEAF) was provide greater farming system based on development and promotion of IFM where it is focus to building on the fondation of IPM . Their purpose is to make the farmer to more understanding and engagement in farming and countryside. (LEAF Annual Review, 2008 and 2009).
‘ It id essential to develop proper farming system which is IFM that have low impact to environment high production in meet the need of a growing global population.
3.0 CONCLUSIONS
As a conclusion, we know that integrated pest management (IPM) has its own pros and cons in term of managing the pest in the plantation site or small farm.. As far as we concern, IPM must be implemented with the right method, at the right moment and the right place. This is because to avoid all of the negative effect that might happen if we use the wrong method at the wrong timing. As we can see, we know that IPM is one of the control method that is being used when the level of pest infestation begin to exceed the Economic Threshold Level (ELT) where the plantation need to limit their use of chemical pesticide in their plantation in order to avoid pest from becoming resistance .
We can say that people nowadays are using too much chemicals in order to control the infestation rate of pest and it is will give imoact to the envionment, health and economic. Therefore, IPM was used so that other control method can also be implemented in order to save the surrounding from being contaminated by chemicals substance.
Other than that, we must know and learn on how to forecast and estimate on what are the possibilities that might happen in the nearest future when implementing the IPM so that there will be no drawbacks on the usage of control method. It is also important to look into any kind of improvement on the current technology and control method so that we can manage all of the problems in the plantation and at the same time we are able to prevent the pest infestation from reaching the Economy Injury Level (EIL).