Biological Pest Control
Biological pest control involves using living organisms, such as predators, parasites, or pathogens, to manage and reduce pest populations. This method is a sustainable and environmentally friendly approach to pest management, as it minimizes the use of chemical pesticides and promotes natural ecological balances. Biological pest control can help maintain the health and productivity of agricultural and natural ecosystems.
6 Key excerpts on "Biological Pest Control"
eBook - ePub- Charles Krebs(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- CSIRO PUBLISHING(Publisher)
...Biological control makes use of herbivores, predators and diseases to reduce the average abundance of the pest species. Cultural control uses crop rotation, inter-planting of crops and other agricultural practices to reduce pest damage. Pests can rarely be eradicated—the ecological objective is to limit pest damage to acceptable levels. There are many cases of major reductions in numbers of introduced pests by herbivores, predators or insect parasitoids that are specially introduced for purposes of control. These successes have produced great economic benefits to farmers, and have encouraged further introductions for potential pest control. But more than 50% of biological control attempts have failed and have left the chemical control as the only means of controlling these pests. We can describe the general ecological attributes of most of the successful control agents, but we cannot predict in advance which agents might be best for control, nor can we explain why failure is so common. Genetic techniques of biological control of pests can be accomplished by producing resistant crop plants or by interfering with the fertility or longevity of the pest. Many techniques for the genetic control of pests have been proposed, but only a few have been used successfully in the field. Immunocontraception is a new method of pest control being developed for mammalian species that are overabundant. All forms of pest control raise ecological questions of how the pest may compensate for increased mortality or reduced fertility. Genetic engineering holds great promise for producing both new methods of reducing pest numbers and crops that are more resistant to insect pests. Integrated pest management (IPM) combines the best features of biological, cultural and chemical control methods to minimize the environmental degradation that has been typical of modern agriculture, which has relied heavily upon chemicals...
eBook - ePubFood Safety and Preservation
Modern Biological Approaches to Improving Consumer Health
- Alexandru Mihai Grumezescu, Alina Maria Holban(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
...The latter, called “natural enemies,” can be classified into three big groups: parasites, predatory, and pathogens (Badii and Abreu, 2006). The mechanisms or agents used to combat and protect the harvests of this detriment mostly belong to products of synthetic origin or chemistry (Brimner and Boland, 2003). However, in past years, the use of pesticides and herbicides has caused controversy since it has adverse effects on consumers, affecting their health, and also on the environment. Even these seem cheap, and in the long run, they cause environmental pollution and negative effects on food and human health due to the concentration of such compounds, prolonged periods of degradation required (Manandhar and Wright, 2015), carcinogenic potential and teratogenic effect (Droby et al., 2009), besides, that they can promote the generation of resistant organisms due to the permanence of such chemical compounds (Paredes et al., 2011). Thus, a reduction or elimination of the applications of synthetic pesticides in agriculture is highly desirable. This has led to the promotion of research of other control options, and for this reason, attention has been paid to control agents of biological origin (Vos et al., 2014). Biological control is the use of an organism to combat another organism (Mmbaga et al., 2008). This technology can have two approaches: (1) the use of native organisms in the system or (2) the incorporation of some that are unrelated to this, which are able to fight problematic pathogens of the crop in question (Sharma et al., 2009). This alternative goes in hand with the sustainable development and conservation of natural resources, its principle being the use of natural compounds (Yu et al., 2013). Research has focused on identifying new organisms with a clear potential to be part of a select group called “biological control agents” (BCAs) and their action mechanisms (Manandhar and Wright, 2015)...
eBook - ePubIntegrated Pest Management
Current Concepts and Ecological Perspective
- Dharam P Abrol(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Academic Press(Publisher)
...Chapter 14 Biological Control of Invasive Insect Pests Mark G. Wright, University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI, USA Biological control of invasive insect pests has a long history of success. Implementation of biological control requires a comprehensive understanding of natural enemy ecology to facilitate prediction of the effectiveness of prospective biological control agents, and to ensure that non-target impacts are avoided. Research and practice of biological control has made great progress in this regard during the past few decades. Biological control has contributed significantly to reducing the environmental impacts of agricultural pest management, and in conserving indigenous species attacked by invasive insects. Classical biological control of insect pests is likely to become increasingly important in the future with no evident abatement in the rate of invasion by insect pests worldwide. Keywords classical biological control; predators; parasitoids; sustainability 14.1 Introduction Species introduced into new environments often become invasive, having deleterious effects on indigenous environments, human activities such as agriculture, and human health, as vectors of diseases. Invasive insect species produce many negative interactions in their new environments, becoming pests of almost all agricultural crops and attacking indigenous plant species. Examples of invasive insect pests of agricultural crops are numerous. In many cases, insect pests have threatened entire agricultural industries, or have placed staple crops of subsistence communities in dire jeopardy. Insects that act as vectors of plant pathogenic viruses are among the most severe pests in agriculture, and a number of these vectors have been instrumental in severely restricting certain crop industries, such as Tomato spotted wilt virus on tomatoes in South Africa and Papaya ringspot virus on papaya in Hawaii...
eBook - ePub- Opender Koul, G. S. Dhaliwal(Authors)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
...7 E FFECT OF M ULTIPARASITISM ON THE P ARASITIZATION B EHAVIOR OF I NSECT P ARASITOIDS Ernes J. Harris and Renato C. Bautista United States Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center, US Department of Agriculture, Honolulu, USA Introduction The risks and detrimental consequences associated with the use of chemical pesticides have been a recurring theme in pest control over the last decade. As we persistently protect our food supply from perennial ravages by obnoxious pests, a compelling desire to address this issue will continue to preoccupy our quest for ecologically nondisruptive control strategies into the next millennium. Thus, we are tasked with a mandate to minimize drastically the use of pesticides and remove complete reliance on pesticides for control of pests as we continue to search for less harmful and environmentally sound tactics. Biological control is a nonchemical method that utilizes natural enemies (entomophagous insects) for suppression and regulation of insect pest populations. It is a control approach that may be combined with other more compatible procedures in an integrated pest management (IPM) program (Knipling, 1992). As one of several conventional control methods, biological control has always been constantly challenged and put to test. Nevertheless, from the time biological control was recognized and put into practice as early as the fifteenth century (Doutt, 1965), it has made tremendous impact in suppression of a number of pest organisms. Complete or partial successes in the use of natural enemies against insect pests and weeds have been reported and reviewed in detail by Caltagirone and Doutt (1989), Andres and Goeden (1969), DeBach et al...
eBook - ePubGood Garden Bugs
Everything You Need to Know About Beneficial Insects
- Mary Gardiner(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Quarry Books(Publisher)
...2 Biological Control in Home Gardens With the right balance of plant-feeding herbivores and natural enemies, you can create a sustainable garden at home. Gardeners can achieve this balance in part by applying biological control tactics, which range from releasing natural enemies to conserving those already present within your landscape. In this chapter, I describe how importation, augmentation, and conservation biological control can be useful to gardeners who are trying to manage home landscape pests. Importation and augmentation biological control both focus on releasing natural enemies into the landscape. Importation involves the release of nonnative natural enemies in order to reduce populations of invasive pests accidently introduced into the United States. As gardeners, we are not going to perform these importation biological control releases ourselves, but we benefit from successful programs that reduce damage to garden and landscape plants. We can perform our own augmentation biological control releases, where naturally occurring predators or parasitoids can be purchased and introduced into the garden to combat pest infestations. When thinking about applying biological control practices in a home landscape, however, conservation biological control is the place to start. Conservation biological control involves building up existing natural enemy communities by creating a suitable habitat that provides all the resources they need to thrive. Application of these conservation practices can mitigate the need to take further action, whether that is the release of biological control agents or the use of chemicals to control insect pests. Also consider other nonchemical control methods that can be used with biological control to manage pests. This can be as simple as removing the pests by hand. For small gardens, dropping pests into a bucket of soapy water works well for immobile or slow-moving pests such as pest eggs and many larvae...
eBook - ePub- James E. Faust, John Dole, James E. Faust, John Dole(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- CAB International(Publisher)
...7 Biological Control of Pests H ENRY W AINWRIGHT Long Easton, Bigbury, Kingsbridge, UK INTRODUCTION Biological control has made huge strides forward since Hussey and Scopes (1985) wrote their seminal book, Biological Pest Control: The Glasshouse Experience, over 35 years ago. The two largest commercial biological control companies that exist today (Koppert Biological Systems and Biobest Group NV) have their roots in this period. Initially, biological control focused on greenhouse vegetables such as tomatoes and cucumbers. However, in the past 10 years significant developments have taken place that have stimulated adoption of biological control products in a range of crops and situations. The main challenge in using biological controls in cut flowers is that stems, leaves and flowers are generally all harvested and represent ‘the product’. Therefore, there is almost zero tolerance for damage or the presence of pests, or indeed the presence of the biological control agent. Despite this potential drawback, biological control is now widely practiced in cut flower production through augmentative biological control using invertebrate and microbial organisms (natural enemies and biopesticides) applied seasonally or prophylactically. WHY USE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL? In the past decade, many of the factors that encourage adoption of biological control have become more prominent in both cut flowers and food crops. Van Lenteren (2012) identified some of these factors, the most important of which has been the build-up of arthropod resistance to chemical pesticides. The issue of resistance has been further compounded by a significant reduction in the range of chemical active ingredients available to growers. Manufacturers have withdrawn many of the older, more toxic pesticides owing to pressure from national regulators...
