What are the best ways to manage crop pests and diseases without harming the environment?

Insect traps like using of pheromones, kiramones, light traps (solar) will be helpful.. vacuum insect catchers are recently used in precision farming..

Most arable rotations today are cereals, cereals, pulses/oilseed. Where weeds are an issue, growing vigorous hybrid barleys can help outcompete them.

More tips for crop rotation method: 1. Growing two or more crops simultaneously in the same field can deter pests. Some plants repel pests that are harmful to another plant grown alongside it. 2. Timing of Planting and Harvesting is crucial. Adjusting the planting dates can help avoid peak pest seasons. Similarly, timely harvesting can prevent exposure to a pest or disease that strikes late in the season.

Pest host interaction has several components, biochemical receptors, environmental conditions and farming practices. The most sustainable approach is very likely the most similar to the one that occurs without human intervention. By maintaining the population of pest at a level that both farmer economical loss and pest evolution pressure is low, a minimal stabilized yet tolerable damage will help farmers to handle pests with predictability.

In my experience there are several ways to combat pests and disease without harming the environment. This includes using beneficials for biological control such as nematodes or predator mites. Another option is creating the right conditions to fight the pest before it can establish. Fighting the pest can be done through natural methods such as peroxide based sprays such as Zerotol made by Bio Safe. Both of these methods help create an environment we can use to our advantage to combat pests and disease.

Traditional mulches are organic like straw or leaves, but modern agriculture uses plastic films for their enhanced weed control. However, concerns over non-degrading plastic residues have spurred interest in environmentally friendly, biodegradable mulch films. Biodegradable mulch films are designed to decompose in the soil at the end of their useful life, leaving little to no residue. They're made from renewable resources and polymers like polylactic acid (PLA), starch, or other biopolymers. Biodegradable mulch films decompose into water, CO2, and biomass, enhancing soil health. They don't need removal post-harvest. However, ensuring durability and yet timely degradation, is challenging. They can be costlier and may degrade unevenly.

Examples of mechanical control for weed management include hand roguing, hoeing (often GPS guided)and burning and also new novel methods such as electrocution are being trialled.

Biopesticides and botanical pesticides are also reliable and sustainable ways to manage important pests and there are increasing trend on these innovations. However, to make it durable and reliable in the field, improvement of formulations that could withstand under various environmental conditions must be put in place. Biological based entomopathogens and Bt derived products needs also to be tested for its location specific performance as there could be variabilities on organisms being targeted hence extensive research and understading must be done before applications. Local availability of these products must also be considered.

They are pivotal tools in sustainable agriculture because of their friendly nature and target specificity. Some more examples are: Azadirachtin, Rotenone, Sabadilla and virus-based pesticides that use viruses against pests or Nematodes that are used as predators for certain pests. They are generally safer for mammals, birds and beneficial insects than synthetic broad-spectrum pesticides. However, being target specific is also a disadvantage as it means that farmers need to accurately identify the pest to be able to choose the right biopesticide.

Usually you can solve a pest problem before it starts by ensuring the conditions do not favour the pests! Ensuring the soil has a maximally wide range of healthy microbes is a great first step, and this can be done by using properly made composts and teas. When microbes are in balance, there isn’t the space or food for pests to become a problem. In the worst case scenario, it is possible to intervene with a biological countermeasure, knowing this will again destabilize the system. Often when there are problems, it is an issue from the top down - somehow, the predators have been depleted.

Long, extensive research programs are carried out to discover a particular substance that, when used in a particular way, at a particular dose, will cause these adverse consequences only in the target species – and not in non-target organisms, such as humans or bees. After this, scientists must then perform another vast array of tests to demonstrate to the authorities that products containing this substance are safe for humans and the environment when used correctly. Only when the authorities are completely satisfied can the product be sold on the market to help farmers protect their crops from damaging pests, diseases and weeds.

In regenerative agriculture and organic is the focus on preventing instead off curatieve applications . The focus is on soil health, healthy environment and therefore healthy crops. This means in practice that you don’t use insecticides, herbicides and preferable also no fungicides. This way of farming also has less pollution and sequestrate carbon etc. It’s the way that’s already used for more then 10.000 years . There is a lot of craftsmanship involved and knowing your local ecosystem. One off the other goals is crop-diversification, no tillage etc . Crop diversity means also more biodiversity so lesser needs of curative applications. You need to think a head but it’s real value for the farmers and it decreases cost and increases margins

Apply Integrated Disease Management principles (IDM)! Start with prevention. Early identification of pathogen/ disease symptoms, use resistant varieties, proper crop rotation, planting of healthy seed and proper management of previous crop residues and volunteers/ weeds that can serve as inoculum reservoir. By reducing pathogen inoculum early on we are reducing the potential for epidemics/ high disease pressure. Reducing pathogen population size also reduces the chances of new variants/ mutations to appear and then increase in frequency. If all this fails, then consider chemical control at the minimal level necessary for proper disease management. This could be preventive if env. conditions are highly conducive for disease development.

Allow me to add some more tips, Soil Solarization: Covering the soil with plastic (you can re-use it many times) during the hottest part of the year to trap solar energy, raising the soil temperature to levels lethal to many soilborne pathogens, nematodes, and weed seeds. Trap Crops: Planting crops that are more attractive to pests away from the main crop. Pests are drawn to the trap crop, where can then be destroyed, reducing the pest numbers on the main crop. Fallowing: Leaving a field without planting for a season can help break the life cycle of certain pests and diseases. Maintaining Field Hygiene: Regularly removing plant debris and cleaning farm tools.

Genetic defense can be useful and can be integrated along with other sustainable pest management practices. Improving the ability of plants to resists insect pest and diseases can be an intricate process but can be highly reliable especially in difficult to manage and damaging pests.