A European laboratory for IPM

A number of successful integrated pest management (IPM) programmes have been operating in European glasshouses for 15 years. Peter Esbjerg reports on developments.

Today across North-West Europe about 70% of commercial glasshouses are managed through IPM, and in Denmark, the proportion has reached more than 90%. Based on biological controls, IPM enables growers to control all major pests and avoid most pesticide use, delivering to the consumer true IPM products. This successful regional development of modern biological control in glasshouses, includes the use of predators, parasitic insects and insect pathogens. 
    The system is promoted through the Working Group on Biological Control in Glasshouses, a part of the International Organisation for Biological and Integrated Control of Noxious Insects and Plants/West Palearctic Regional Section-known as IOBC/WPRS. The institution has a uniquely strong focus on IPM, and has also evolved a programme of Integrated Production (IP) systems in Europe which addresses the entire farming system to develop approaches to manage pest disease and weed problems with increased sustainability and minimal pesticide use.
    IOBC/WPRS draws members from government services, universities, the private sector and other institutions in around 25 countries of Western Europe, the Mediterranean Region and the Near and Middle East. It is independent, and financed entirely from members' contributions. Founded in 1956, IOBC/WPRS is now part of a global consortium of regional IOBC sections, with bases in the Asia/Pacific, Africa, Nearctic, Neotropical regions co-ordinated from its secretariat in Montpellier, France.
    Members themselves have played a crucial role in developing the IP approach, and the Working Group brings together regional experts directed at developing and implementing biological control technologies, in particular areas or crop system.

Guidelines and labels
WPRS has taken a world lead in the development of IP guidelines. Thirty years ago, Drs Steiner and Baggiolini, from Germany and Switzerland respectively, developed for fruit production a concept of building the pest 'buffering' capacity of the natural environment as a basis for reducing pesticide use to a minimal necessary level, a concept which Steiner also demonstrated in a programme of arable farming in Lautenbach Hof in Germany, where an ecological approach allowed pesticide reduction with no change in yield.  Building on this early experience, experts from the region have now developed and published IOBC/WPRS guidelines for IP in a range of European crop systems, including fruits, vines, arable crops and vegetables, which address all aspects of sustainable production and pest, weed and disease management.
    These guidelines have attracted the interest of producers and food-marketing companies, particularly in connection with fruit and vegetables. In some cases, special IP labels have been approved by IOBC/WPRS while in other cases companies and grower associations have developed their own protocols, control systems and labels based on IP guidelines published in IOBC/WPRS Bulletins. Interest in developing similar IP and certification systems has now spread to other IOBC Regional Sections and to tropical crops like bananas, where the IOBC/WPRS model is being explored. A more general effect of this programme in Europe has been a general push to extend IP standards over large areas and between countries, and thereby to raise European consciousness about reducing pesticide use, protecting the environment and increasing sustainability.

Safety standards on biocontrol products
An IOBC Working Group on 'Pesticides and Beneficials' has addressed another need for re-examining pesticide use within an IPM context.  This group, comprising members from both public and private sector institutions, has been instrumental in developing detailed test procedures and methodologies to determine pesticide effects on the important natural enemies in European crops in order to help conserve natural biological control and complement the use of biocontrol products.  The EU is now adopting these guidelines into the process for pesticide registration in Europe.
    With the move towards IP standards for large areas of Europe, there is a great need for further development of guidelines, and refinement of existing ones. IOBC/WPRS will play a leading role in this process. On the methodological side, this includes a need for improved monitoring methodologies and development of control thresholds to assist growers in making precise decisions about pesticide use. IOBC/WPRS has a role as well in meeting the growing demand for biological control methods and their successful commercialisation and application. This will support not only the improvement of IP systems but the development as well of growing organic production systems in Europe.

Professor Peter Esbjerg is the President of IOBC/WPRS, Zoology Section, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Bülowsvej 13, DK 1871 Fredericksberg C, Copenhagen, Denmark.

For the Secretariat of IOBC/WPRS contact: Dr C. Alabouvette, INRA, Laboratoire de recherches sur la Flore pathogène, 17 rue Sully, BP 1540, FR-21034, Dijon, Cedex, France, Fax, +33 3 80 63 32 26, ala@dijon.inra.fr

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 39, March 1998, page 9]