Crop Protection Fundamentals and Integrated Pest Management
Crop Protection Fundamentals and Integrated Pest Management
This domain tests whether you can decide whether and how to act against a pest, not just name it. Expect questions on the IPM pyramid, economic thresholds, natural enemies and method selection.
Core rules
- A pest is an organism whose population causes economic loss; many insects are neutral or beneficial.
- IPM combines monitoring, cultural, mechanical, biological and chemical methods; chemicals are a last resort, not the first.
- The economic threshold (ETL) is the pest density at which control is justified to prevent reaching the economic injury level (EIL). ETL is lower than EIL.
- Monitor with sweep nets, sticky traps, light traps and fixed-point counts; record stage and natural-enemy numbers.
- Rotate methods and modes of action to slow resistance.
Worked example
A rice field averages 8 brown planthoppers per hill; the local ETL is 5 per hill. Reasoning: the count exceeds ETL, but first check crop stage and predators. If the crop is tillering and mirid bugs are abundant, a selective insecticide may be avoided; if hopperburn is starting, apply a labelled product and stop. The ETL, not the calendar, triggers action.
Traps
Calendar spraying, treating ETL as EIL, misidentifying a predator as a pest, and ignoring local label doses all lose marks.