The total retail market for organic products is now more than $39 billion in the United States alone (USDA Office of Communication Release 2016). Organic farming is no longer considered a cottage industry and has shown an increase in retail sales of nearly 300% since the recording began in 2002. Moreover, biological control is a cornerstone of organic farming, and the production of organic commodities in the United States continues to increase.
It will play an increasingly important role in integrated pest management (IPM) programs as broad-spectrum pesticide use continues to decline. Leader: Instituto Superior de Agronomia Partner: Escola Superior Agrária de Santarém.Biological control continues to be proven one of the most effective, environmentally sound, and cost-effective pest management approaches used to controlling arthropod and mite pests. The implementation of this project involves two tomato producers: Hortipor and Olhorta and the Institute of Agronomy (ISA), the College of Agriculture of Santarém (ESAS) and the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon (FCUL). In order to achieve the main objective, the following actions for the design, dissemination and incorporation process will be implemented: i) Writing protocols for identification and quantification of pest populations and indigenous biocontrol agents ii) Evaluating the consequences of the introduction of commercial agents iii) Defining rules of action to control pests, with and without the release of biocontrol agents iv) Meetings for reporting and sensitization v) Designing teaching materials: demo videos and digital booklets in the available web communication platforms and thematic networks. The establishment of the processes associated with the use of alternatives to pesticides is of particular interest in increasing the species competitiveness by improving the quality of the final product. This operation will bring together several activities to define procedures before the acquisition of commercial biocontrol agents (choice of species and number of specimens necessary to each release) and after the release, assessing the effectiveness and need to perform other complementary tasks to control the pest in question.
These inundative biological control practices within a given ecological niche can lead to the extinction of populations of other species of the same niche which reduces the action potential of natural limitation. This study will be conducted with the species which have more expressiveness in the horticultural production in the “Oeste” and Alentejo regions: bumblebees, mirids and aphid parasitoids. The genetic erosion made by inundative biological control may lead to less genetic diversity of native populations and, consequently, to decrease the capacity for survival of individuals. This has been the case of mirids used to control whitefly and tomato leafminers, which this new process aims to improve. This operation is of great importance due to the fact that inundative releases allow an immediate pest control but can also lead to increase the natural enemies populations which, if not strictly zoophag may constitute, themselves, as pests in need of intervention. This project also aims to evaluate the release of the control agents to better tailor protection strategies to be used for the conservation of local biodiversity and consequently to increase the production. It pretends to check the presence and intensity of pest attacks and to assess the presence of biological control agents, in particular the indigenous species. This innovative project aims to provide rules of conduct to control pests of horticultural crops. Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research Platform (LTsER Montado).Field Station "Herdade da Ribeira Abaixo".Environmental Stress & Functional Ecology - ESFE.Conservation in Socio-Ecological Systems - CSES.Tropical and Mediterranean Biodiversity - TMB.Island Biodiversity, Biogeography & Conservation - IBBC.Island Environmental Risks & Society - IERS.Development and Evolutionary Morphogenesis - DEM.Ecology of Environmental Change - eChanges.Computational Biology and Population Genomics - CoBiG2.
Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation and Modelling - CCIAM.
New production process to control major pests and improve the quality of the final product and the management of natural resources, with biological control agents - Projects - CE3C
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