Trial Results

 IPM Trial Results Corangamite/G-H 07 (pdf - 188KB)

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is the increasingly popular system of managing insect pests by monitoring populations, replacing "hard", broad spectrum insecticides that kill pests and beneficial insects alike with more selective insecticides and using other strategies like baiting and seed dressings.

Integrated Pest Management Doesn't Mean Do Nothing - the benefits and costs

IPM offers the opportunity to reduce chemical use. Farmers who have trialed an IPM approach over the last two years have reduced their reliance on broad acre spraying with direct savings of between $5/ha and $30/ha1. Some have taken the next step and are applying IPM to their entire farming operation.

However, it comes at a cost. Time spent on the tractor spraying is often replaced with regular monitoring of paddocks. A new level of skill is required to identify the beneficial insects as well as the pests and to know the appropriate strategies to apply. Above all, most farmers who have tried an IPM approach say holding your nerve and waiting for the beneficial insects to do their job is the most difficult part.

What next?

Work will continue to improve our understanding of what farm practices encourage beneficials and discourage crop and pasture pests. Grain and Graze has also run half day courses for local agronomists to develop their skills in using IPM.

IPM Training Course

18 producers have began a 12 month training course in IPM, applying IPM on their own farms in the 2007 season. Backed by the national Grain & Graze program, the training is being run by Southern Farming Systems and the Rural Industries Skills Training (RIST), with supervisory and advisor input from Dr Paul Horne and Jessica Page, of IPM Technologies and Steve Dickson, of Agvise at Inverleigh.

The ready availability of IPM expertise from Dr Paul Horne, Jessica Page and Steve Dickson - whose extensive knowledge of IPM in Victoria - would underpin the training program. The consultants would make regular visits to participating farms to monitor their progress and be constantly available by phone at other times.

"Lots of people have expressed interest in IPM but don't know where to start," Mr Nicholson said. "This project puts the toe in the water, if you like, and while the course proper is limited to 18 people, we anticipate running many more courses starting in late 2007."

Contact

For more information on IPM, contact Cam Nicholson on 03 5258 3860 or 0417 311 098.

Farmer's Story - Spraying Less Means Fewer Pests on Victorian Farm

Key points

• Integrated Pest Management (IPM) can lower spraying costs and achieve higher yields;
• IPM restores the natural balance of insects and improves biodiversity in the area; and
• IPM requires more monitoring of crop systems and knowledge of beneficial and pest insects, parasites and pathogens.

Recent research is challenging the widely held view that modern farming practices, in particular stubble retention and minimum tillage, have led to an increase in pests in Australian crops.

The research being conducted in Western Victoria in conjunction with the national Grain & Graze program, suggests these modern faming techniques are actually killing more pests than ever before. The problem, however, is that beneficial insects, parasites and pathogens are more susceptible to pest control measures than the pest insects, and the balance in Australia's cropping system is being altered.

For Victorian grower Rowan Peel, a desire to restore this balance and create a farm with less reliance on costly chemicals led to a trial of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on his farm near Winchelsea in the Western Districts of Victoria. Taking an IPM approach has resulted in better crop yields and lower spraying costs.

Mr Peel, a founding member of the Southern Farming Systems group, says the IPM system is generating an increase in the biodiversity on his farm and reducing the environmental impact from his business.

Mr Peel employs three types of IPM control measures on his concept farm, which is also pioneering broad-scale raised bed and alley farming in an area traditionally prone to water logging.

The first control method is naturally occurring insects, parasites and pathogens - called beneficial predators - that act as predators to target pests. The second control measure is to encourage beneficial predators and/or suppress pests in a crop or pasture, and the third is the strategic use of selective or targeted herbicides.

The researcher helping Mr Peel with the trial is Dr Paul Horne from Victorian based IPM Technologies Pty Ltd. He says IPM theories are relatively complex to implement, but the theories behind them are relatively simple.

"For example, growers are able to create a paddock environment where more beneficial species can grow, simply by adjusting insecticide applications," he said.

"This is because the same conditions that harbour pests also provide an ideal habitat for beneficial species.

"We have seen this happen on farms in the Inverleigh (Vic) area, where we have worked for the last three years, as a result of changed insecticide use.

"The ratio of (beneficial) carabid beetles and predatory earwigs to (pest) slugs and earwigs has changed from being dominated by pests to the total population of slugs and earwigs now being 90 per cent beneficial," he said.

This type of population change is a result of changed farming practices - in many cases the best course of action is no action to allow the population of beneficial species to increase. But Dr Horne warns that an increase in crop monitoring and a thorough knowledge of beneficial and pest species is vital to the success of an IPM strategy.

"For IPM to work properly we need knowledge of the life-stages, timing and population dynamics of pests and beneficial species and we must use regular monitoring to decide on what measures are required," he said.

"The rate of build-up of populations of beneficial species can vary greatly. Some (like lacewigs and ladybirds) can be expected to build up numbers very quickly, within a single cropping season.

"Others, like some carabid beetles and spiders, have multi-year life-cycles and can be expected to respond more slowly to a changed management approach.

"Some pests, such as slugs and aphids, can also breed up into large populations rapidly. For example, some slugs can produce a thousands eggs per individual and have two generations per year.

"Aphids can produce young within days of maturing and have a generation time of less than two weeks. Beneficial species such as parasitic wasps and lacewings that specialise in eating aphids also usually have a generation time that is short - like those of the aphids," he said.