Developing and promoting Integrated Pest Management in Australian Grains

Invertebrate pests represent a significant challenge to sustainable grain production in many parts of Australia.  Reliance on ‘broad-spectrum’ chemicals to control agricultural pests leads to problems in pest resurgence, secondary pests and the development of pesticide resistance.  Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a proven approach to manage invertebrate pests that coordinates the use of pest biology, environmental information, and available technology to prevent unacceptable levels of pest damage, while posing the least possible risk to people and the environment.  This project will benchmark current pest management practices and understanding of IPM principles among growers and advisors.  Through multiple on-farm demonstration trials established with regional grower groups this project will demonstrate the utility of alternatives to conventional pest management.  Researchers will collaborate closely with regional growers groups to address local pest threats.  These trials will be accompanied by the delivery of workshops, field-days and genuine extension of project findings through oral and written publications.  On completion of this project growers will have a greater understanding of alternative pest management tactics, and how these tactics might be used as part of an integrated approach, thus reducing reliance on broad-spectrum insecticides.  The three main focus areas are:

1.    Benchmarking of current pest management practices and understanding of IPM principles of growers and agronomists.  A survey of growers will be conducted in order to gauge the current level of understanding of, and attitude to, IPM.  It will also identify the major economic pests that growers actively manage, the approach they use to manage these pests.

2.    On-farm trials to investigate the use of alternatives to a conventional ‘high-input’ pest management approach.  These trials will run over two cropping seasons (canola focus in 2010, wheat in 2011) at five locations across Australia.  The trials will consist of three comparative pest management strategies:

1. No input approach (control),
2. A conventional ‘high insecticide-input’ approach, based on the spray pattern used to manage pests in each local area.
3. An alternative ‘low insecticide-input’ approach.  Accurate monitoring of pest and beneficial abundance, combined with assessments of plant damage levels, will be used for the decision-making process of when to (and not to) intervene with sprays.

3.    Delivery of workshops aimed at improving the capability of growers and consultants to identify key pest and beneficial species.  There are four workshops planned in each region across the course of the project.  The communication of project findings will occur through the workshops, presentation of on-farm demonstration trial results through field-days and oral and written publications.