PEST MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Cultural
Many crop management practices can prevent or delay the development of pest outbreaks. Follow these cultural control tools:
- Choose sites with good air drainage and north-south orientation of the rows to maximize sun exposure, and practices that open the canopy so that air circulation and spray coverage are improved.
- Prune, train and manage the canopy (shoot thinning and leaf-removal) to reduce shading and allow rapid air movement to reduce the frequency and duration of periods of high humidity which favour the disease. This also improves spray penetration.
- Select cultivars less susceptible to disease or insect damage.
- Use plants tested and determined to be free from disease.
- Remove all sources of the pest, such as prunings, rachises, dead vines and dropped fruit from the vineyard.
- Maintain good weed control and eliminate wild hosts from within as well as the perimeter of planting.
- Avoid intercropping plants that host similar pest complexes.
- Avoid planting in poorly drained locations.
- Timely irrigation can reduce plant stress during drought and increase plant tolerance to pests. Schedule irrigation so that plants are not wet overnight.
- Manage nutrients to avoid excessively lush growth, which is more susceptible to some diseases and more attractive to some insect pests.
- Balance crop and canopy to avoid excessive canopy and shading.
Chemical
Chemical controls include synthetic, inorganic, botanical and biological pesticides. They kill target pests, limit subsequent populations and are important tools for crop protection when used in an IPM program.
Understand the pest’s life cycle and apply chemicals at the stage when the pest is most vulnerable.
- To manage insects and mites, monitor blocks closely and spray according to action thresholds established for each species.
- To manage disease, apply protective fungicides when weather conditions are favourable and before damage occurs.
Biological
Biological control uses a pest’s natural enemies to help suppress pest populations. These natural enemies, collectively known as “beneficials” may be predatory insects, parasites, pathogens or nematodes. Beneficials are most effective against indirect pests. They are less effective at keeping populations of direct pests, those that attack the harvested product, at levels acceptable for commercial production.
Natural enemies can be adversely affected by the crop environment and the pesticides used to manage pest populations. IPM programs attempt to minimize adverse effects of pesticides on beneficials and take advantage of the pest suppression provided by these insects.
- Avoid use of pesticides that are toxic to the most important beneficials in a cropping system.
- Modify insect habitat through the introduction of cover crops to promote beneficial organisms.
- Encourage a diverse habitat around the perimeter of the vineyard where beneficial insects can live.
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