Non-Pesticidal Management

Submitted by admin on Sun, 10/11/2009 - 19:54

In any crop, keeping insect from reaching pest status is necessary to get economic yields. This requires managing the pests in all its life stages so that their populations are under control. At the same time, the crop combinations are also important. Unfortunaltey, modern agriculture is on the wrong way in both the aspects by resorting to harmful chemical pesticides and monocropping that further aggravated the pests problem.

NPM focuses on the practices that keep the insects from reaching harmful stages and harmful proportions.
It employs methods that gives control over to nature so that the pests are controlled by other organisms
It replaces harmful and expensive pesticides with knowledge, skills, local resources, labour, natural processes and community action.

Principles of NPM
Natural balance in crop ecosystem should be encouraged growing inter crops, trap crops, border crops. Cropping diversity in place of mono cropping. After stopping spray of insecticides farmer’s friends establish and control pests.

Management skill: selecting crop based on soil, water resources, climate and local pest problems that occur regularly, crop rotation, adjustment of sowing dates to avoid endemic pests, setting up light and pheromone traps, keeping sticky traps and bird perhes.

Local resources: In place of market dependent resources, using locally available organic injects for soil improvement and pest control. They would be available in village itself at affordable cost.

Labor: Ready made chemical inputs and out of shelf products make agriculture a costly affin. Instead farmer should invest his labor as main investment.

Community approach: To control some insects farmers of a village or group of village need to take control measures together for example farming pesticides use in/from village putting confires in fields etc.

Management practices

Deep summer ploughing:
In hot summer months if fallow fields are ploughed the hiding resting stages are exposed Root grubs, pupal stages of several caterpillar pests, eggs of grasshoppers survive in soil. During cropping season they become active, come out of soil and damage crop due to summer ploughing, they die before start of cropping season birds pickle these insects walking behind plough.

Clean cultivation:
At the end of crop, stables should be removed and heaped to burn there. They act as refuges for many insects/ pests. In cotton pink boll worm in brinjal shoot and fruit borer hibernates in faller debris Prompt destruction would reduce pest infestation over compel of years.

Crop rotation
If same is grown over years in one piece of land, regular pests would be established and cause incremental losses year by year. Hence, by crop rotation with legumes besides improving soil condition pest infestation also controlled some monophagous pests are best controlled by this practice.

Trap crops/ Border crops
Some insect pests prefer to eat some plants hence there attracted to some crops than other. Sowing the preferred plants around the main crop would divert the attention of pest from main crop, hence pest pressure on main crop would come down.
Adult moths of spodoptera are more attracted to castor trap crop in cotton. Caster can be grown around the field or in few spots eggs laid on these plants can be easily located and removed.

Inter crops:
Cultivating more than one crop in a piece of land in proportronate rows. In Dry land farming it would give farming it would give farmers some economic se unity under drought conditions. Cultivating green gram, black gram, or cowpea in cotton, groundnut as inter crop in sunflower, would incourage lady bird beetles to establish on pest desides improving soil condition.

Quality seed &seedlings:
Healthy seed devoid of any resting stage of insects and resting spares of diseases should be used. Sugalane cuttings with scale and Tomato and brinjal seedlings with nematode infestation should be avoided.

Adjusting timing of sowing of the crop:
Based on & experience of pest years and observations sowing time should be adjusted to avoid the peak pest infestation period. Early sowing of rice in kharif in recommended to avoid gall midge

Pest and disease resistant varieties:
Cultivation of resistant varieties should be preferred in endview areas of pests would reduce pest pressure. Phalguna, Surekha, Vikram, Kakatiya and dhanyalakshme are resistant to gall midge LAS 141, LK 861 varieties are resistant to white fly.

Soil and water management:
Applying water and chemical fertilizers to crop in more than required quantities would make it vulnerable to pests and diseases. Plants require soil moisture not large quantities of water soil should be porous with more moisture holding capacity. Crop need 16 or more nutrients. By applying one or two nutrients in large quantities doesn’t give balanced nutrition to plants. Hence plants would not have capacity to resist pests or diseases. With application of organic amendments like green leaf manner, compost give balanced nutrition. Soil condition hold water would be improved besides giving resistance to pests and diseases.

Frequent irrigation whitefly in surgam cane brown plant hopper in rice increase with.

Bonfires:
By setting bonfires in fields through community approach flying adult moths can be attracted and killed.
Red hairy caterpillar moths and other flying insects are attracted to light dried up stubbes, and plant debris are collected and heaped in the field and set fire during night hours.

Light traps:
Depending on local situation, wherever electricity point is available, instead of bonfire light trap can be set up to attract adult moths. Keeping 150 W bulb in field just above crop height. One tub filled with water and little quantity of kerosene kept below the bulb would act as light trap. Flying insects are attracted and fall in water tub and die. This would serve for 4 aves area.
Yellow stem borer of rice, plant hoppers, gall midge are attracted to light. Hence in rice growing areas by using light traps intensity of several pests can be controlled. Community approach yields best
results.

Pheromone traps
Keeping lures of cotton bollworm, tobacco caterpillar, pink bollworm, in traps presence of these insects can be noted. By keeping 4-5 traps per acre the intensity of pest can be monitered. Male moths are attracted to the lure and get trapped and killed, as male population comes down and few are left to mate with females, they lay unfertilized eggs, which don’t hatch.

Sticky traps
Plate or empty tin painted yellow/white and smeared with grease kept just above crop level. The colour of the sticky trap attracts certain insects to it and are stuck to it. Depending on the insects that are to be controlled, the colour is chosen. these traps are effective against some sucking insects.

Yellow sticky traps - White flies, Jassids, Plant hoppers
White traps - Thrips

Bird perches:
Dried branches should be tied and kept in field for birds to halt and take rest on them. Keeping small earthen container with water, sprinkling yellow rice in field also help attracting birds.
Perches should be kept @ 20 per acre. In short statured crops like groundnut myna, egrets and in other crops drongo, blue jay prey on several insects. In rice, birds effectively control leaf folder and case worm when 20 perches per acre are erected. The perches should be removed at grain filling stage. Birds are observed in large numbers in fields that are not sprayed with pesticides. Owls prey on field rats.

Labors:
Several pests can be easily managed by timely action from pest monitoring mechanisms with little more effort. Egg masses in fields, on trap and gregarious feeding larvae are collected and destroyed. Rice yellow stem borer lays eggs on upper surface of leaf near leaf tips hence they are clipped Tobacco cater pillar, Red hairy caterpillar lays eggs in lays groups.
In cotton crop tops are clipped at 45 days to remove eggs of bollworms. In pigeon pea by shaking plant larvae can be collected and destroyed by thawing than in fire.

Preparation of bio extracts