Core 4 Pest Management

1
Core 4 Pest Management

• Joseph K. Bagdon
• USDA - NRCS
• National Water and Climate Center
• (Joseph.Bagdon_at_ma.usda.gov)

2
(No Transcript)
3
Pest Management Training

• Core 4 Training
• Extension and state agency training in pest
  management and pesticide applicator safety
• Certified Crop Advisor Program
• NRCS Comprehensive self-paced study course
  entitled Nutrient and Pest Management
  Considerations in a Resource Management System
  Plan

4
Core 4 Pest Management

• Integrate pest management, which includes weed,
  insect and disease management, with
• Conservation Tillage/Residue Management
• Crop Nutrient Management
• Conservation Buffers
• and other Conservation Practices

5
Pest Management and

• Residue Management
• Reduces erosion and runoff
• Increases organic matter and microbial activity
• Nutrient Management
• Optimizes growth
• Conservation Buffers
• Capture sediment at the edge of the field
• Increase infiltration

6
NRCS Pest Management

• To help support Core 4
• Revising NRCS Pest Management Policy
• Revising National Pest Management Standard
• Developed new Pest Management Job Sheet
• Pest Management is a component of a Conservation
  Plan
• Based on our Pest Management Standard
• Includes Practice Specifications

7
Pest Management Implementation

• Draft Standard Purposes
• enhance crop quality and quantity
• minimize negative impacts to identified resource
  concerns (SWAPAH)
• Draft Policy Targeting
• impaired or threatened water bodies identified
  through monitoring and/or modeling
• EPA TMDL - SDWA implementation
• EPA Pesticide Management Plan implementation

8
Draft Policy

• NRCS role in pest management
• Evaluate environmental risks associated with pest
  management
• Develop appropriate mitigation alternatives for
  decision-maker consideration
• Encourage widespread adoption of Integrated Pest
  Management (IPM) programs that help protect
  natural resources
• Assist landowners with development and
  implementation of an acceptable Pest Management
  component of the overall conservation plan

9
Draft Policy

• Certification
• All persons who review or approve plans for pest
  management will be certified through a
  certification program accepted by NRCS in the
  state involved. A person who develops a pest
  management component of the overall conservation
  plan does not have to be certified.

10
Plan Components

• plan and soil map of managed fields if applicable
  
• location of sensitive resources and setbacks if
  applicable
• crop sequence and rotation if applicable
• identification of target pests (and IPM scheme
  for monitoring pest pressure when available)

11
Plan Components

• recommended methods of pest management
  (biological, cultural, mechanical or chemical),
  including rates, product and form, timing, and
  method of applying pest management Note
  pesticide recommendations come from Extension and
  other pest control advisors, not NRCS

12
Plan Components

• results of pest management environmental
  assessments (SPISP, WIN-PST, NAPRA, RUSLE etc.)
  and a narrative describing potential impacts on
  non-target plants and animals, through soil,
  water and air resources as appropriate
• operation and maintenance instructions

13
Draft Standard

• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs that
  strive to balance economics, efficacy and
  environmental risks will be utilized where
  available.
• If IPM programs are not available, the level of
  pest control must be the minimum necessary to
  meet the producers objectives for commodity
  quantity and quality.

14
Draft Standard

• An appropriate set of mitigation techniques must
  be implemented to address the environmental risks
  of pest management activities in order to
  adequately treat identified resource concerns.
  Mitigation techniques include practices like
  filter strips and crop rotation, and management
  techniques like application timing and method.

15
Draft Standard

• The requirement that the producer will maintain
  records of pest management for at least two
  years. Pesticide application records will be in
  accordance with USDA Agricultural Marketing
  Service's Pesticide Record Keeping Program and
  state specific requirements.

16
Current Focus Water Quality

• Management factors that reduce the potential for
  pesticide movement below the rootzone and beyond
  the edge of the field (including management of
  crop, residue/tillage, water and pesticide(s)
• Conservation Buffers that reduce pesticide
  movement beyond the edge of the field

17
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Defined

• Integrated pest management is an approach to pest
  control that combines biological, cultural and
  other alternatives to chemical control with the
  judicious use of pesticides. The objective of
  IPM is to maintain pest levels below economically
  damaging levels while minimizing harmful effects
  of pest control on human health and environmental
  resources.

18
Basic Concepts

• A pest is any organism (plant or animal) judged
  by people as undesirable
• Ecologically speaking, no organism is born a
  pest it all depends on human perspective
• Pest problems do not arise as independent or
  isolated events Crops and pests are part of an
  agroecosystem

19
Pest Types

• Insects
• Nematodes
• Pathogens
• Vertebrates
• Weeds

20
IPM

• Integrated means that a broad interdisciplinary
  approach is taken using scientific principles of
  plant protection to bring together a variety of
  management tactics into an overall strategy.
• IPM strives for maximum use of naturally
  occurring control forces in the pest's
  environment, including weather, pest diseases,
  predators, and parasites.

21
IPM Theory
22
Implementing IPM Theory

• Use cultural methods, biological controls and
  other alternatives to pesticides
• Use field scouting, pest forecasting and economic
  thresholds to ensure that pesticides are only
  used for real pest problems
• Match pesticides with site characteristics to
  minimize off-site environmental risks

23
Examples of Cultural Controls

• Crop rotation
• Tillage operations that turn the soil and bury
  crop debris
• Altering planting and harvest dates
• Altering seeding rates/crop spacing
• Seedbed preparation, fertilizer application and
  irrigation schedules that help plants outgrow
  pests

24
Examples of Cultural Controls

• Sanitation practices such as cleaning tillage and
  harvesting equipment
• Certified seed that is free of pathogens and weed
  seed
• Cover crops
• Trap crops
• Pest resistant varieties

25
Biological Controls

• Predators - free-living animals that eat other
  animals (insects)
• Parasitoids - insect parasites of other insects
• Pathogens - disease causing microorganisms

26
Economic Thresholds
27
IPM Today
28
IPM Delays Pest Resistance

• The innate (genetically inherited) ability of
  organisms to evolve strains that can survive
  exposure to control measures that worked on
  earlier generations.
• In theory, pests can develop resistance to any
  type of control.
• In practice, resistance occurs most frequently in
  response to pesticide use. (600 resistant
  insects, 100 resistant weeds)

29
Take Home IPM Principles

• There is no silver bullet.
• Tolerate, dont eradicate.
• Treat the causes of pest outbreaks, not the
  symptoms.
• If you kill the natural enemies, you inherit
  their job.
• Pesticides are not a substitute for good farming.

30
USDA National IPM Initiative

• Voluntary goal of implementing IPM on 75 of U.S.
  cropland by the year 2002
• Involves farmers and other pest control advisors
  in the development of IPM programs to increase
  subsequent adoption
• IPM benefits everyone it can reduce
  environmental risk, improve food safety and
  increase farmer profitability

31
Environmental Risks of Pest Management

• Chemical control
• Risk of pesticides leaving the Agricultural
  Management Zone (AMZ) in soil, water and air, and
  negatively impacting non-target plants, animals
  and humans
• AMZ is bounded by the top of the crop canopy,
  the bottom of the rootzone, and the edge of the
  field
• Risk of harming beneficial organisms
• Risk to personal safety (Worker Protection)

32
Pesticide Environmental Fate

• Pesticide Persistence and Mobility in Soil
• Soil properties
• Hydraulic loading on the soil
• Crop management practices
• Pesticide properties
• Pesticide management factors
• application methods
• timing

33
Pesticide Environmental Fate Properties and NRCS
Soil/Pesticide Interaction Screening Procedure
(SPISP) Pesticide Ratings
34
Sensitivity of Ground and Surface Water

• Sensitivity refers to intrinsic physical and
  biological characteristics of a particular site
  that make it more or less susceptible to ground
  or surface water contamination
• Sensitivity parameters include
• climate
• soil characteristics (texture, depth,OM, slope)
• distance to water bodies

35
Vulnerability of Ground and Surface Water

• Vulnerability refers to extrinsic management
  factors that could make a sensitive site more or
  less susceptible to ground or surface water
  contamination
• Vulnerability parameters include
• pest management practices (including pesticide
  use practices)
• cropping, tillage and irrigation practices

36
Scales of Pesticide Environmental Risk Analysis

• National assessments can be used to identify
  potential problem areas and set national workload
  priorities
• Watershed level analysis can identify an
  effective set of management solutions
• Field level analysis can be used to apportion
  management solutions site-specifically

37
Field Office Tools

• Screening tools are available to help address
  identified water resource concerns in targeted
  areas
• The Windows Pesticide Screening Tool (WIN-PST)
  evaluates the potential for off-site pesticide
  movement in water, and its relative potential to
  chronically impact humans and sensitive fish
  species(Risk Exposure x Toxicity)

38
WIN-PST

• Evaluates three pesticide loss pathways
• Leaching below the rootzone
• Solution runoff beyond the edge of the field
• Adsorbed runoff beyond the edge of the field
• Includes considerations for
• Climate and Irrigation
• Soil properties (and macropores)
• Field-specific organic matter and topsoil depth
• Apparent high water table

39
WIN-PST

• Includes considerations for
• Crop residue management
• Pesticide application methods
• broadcast, banded, foliar, soil incorporated
• Application Rates
• standard, low, ultra low
• Results designed to guide the site-specific
  choice of appropriate mitigation strategies for
  all recommended pesticide uses

40
(No Transcript)
41
Solution Runoff Human Risk
42
Pesticide Trapping with Conservation Buffers

• Pesticides vary in how tightly they are adsorbed
  to soil particles
• Higher pesticide Koc values indicate strong
  adsorption to soil
• Eroded soil carries the majority of this kind of
  pesticide leaving fields in runoff
• Conservation buffers that are effective in
  trapping sediment will trap these pesticides

43
Pesticide Trapping with Conservation Buffers

• Pesticides with lower Koc values tend to move
  more in water than adsorbed to sediment
• To be effective in trapping this type of
  pesticide, buffers need to increase water
  infiltration or maximize contact of runoff with
  vegetation that may adsorb pesticide

44
In Summary, We Want To

• Integrate environmental risk into the pest
  management decision-making process
• Apply appropriate mitigation strategies on a
  site-specific basis
• Consider pest management interrelationships with
  climate, and soil, water, nutrient and crop
  management, in order to minimize negative impacts
  to non-target plants, animals and humans