INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT: AN ENTOMOLOGIST'S PERSPECTIVE

It is widely agreed that integrated pest and disease management (IPDM) is the most sustainable approach for reducing crop yield losses due to arthropod pests and diseases, an aim shared by both agricultural entomology and plant pathology. IPDM combines several control methods in the most compatible way, taking into account the entire agroecosystem, other related ecosystems and the general interest of society. Implementation of IPDM systems needs R& D in Plant pathology and Agricultural entomology to be mutually connected and to progress with a common objective. This goal is analysed through the scientific and more general literature produced by plant pathologists and agricultural entomologists in recent decades. The term 'integrated' has been adopted to a greater extent by agricultural entomologists although it is increasingly used by plant pathologists. When the R&D on the most relevant control methods for IPDM is examined, plant pathologists focus on crop plant resistance whereas agricultural entomologists are more active in biological control, though the differences tend to diminish in recent years. Surprisingly, cultural control is rarely mentioned in either of the two disciplines. A comparison of the references to innovative tools for IPDM shows a relatively low adoption by plant pathologists and agricultural entomologists with the exception of biotechnological tools, which are more widely used by the former than the latter. Economic threshold is a little used expression in plant pathology publications. Finally, references to nanotechnology in plant pathology and agricultural entomology publications are still few but significant considering the novelty of this field in science and technology development.