Writing in Pest Management Science, they draw on a survey and workshop organised by the European Research Area Network on Coordinated Integrated Pest Management (ERA-Net C-IPM), to analyse the current situation and produce a series of recommendations to boost IPM through plant breeding.
These include more favourable regulatory systems, the decentralisation of participatory plant breeding programmes to test resilience in contrasting environments or cultivation practices, a focus on breeding for crop diversification and the adoption of new breeding techniques in IPM breeding programmes.
They authors note: “Currently, European farmers do not have access to sufficient numbers and diversity of crop species/varieties. This prevents them from designing cropping systems more resilient to abiotic and biotic stresses. Crop diversification is a key lever to reduce pest (pathogens, animal pests and weeds) pressures at all spatial levels from fields to landscapes. In this context, plant breeding should consist of: (1) increased efforts in the development of new or minor crop varieties to foster diversity in cropping systems, and (2) focus on more resilient varieties showing local adaptation.
“This new breeding paradigm, called here ‘breeding for integrated pest management (IPM)’, may boost IPM through the development of cultivars with tolerance or resistance to key pests, with the goal of reducing reliance on conventional pesticides. At the same time, this paradigm has legal and practical implications for future breeding programs, including those targeting sustainable agricultural systems. By putting these issues into the context, this article presents the key outcomes of a questionnaire survey and experts' views expressed during an EU workshop entitled ‘Breeding for IPM in sustainable agricultural systems’.”
Taken from: Lamichhane, J. R., Arseniuk, E., Boonekamp, P., Czembor, J., Decroocq, V., Enjalbert, J., Finckh, M. R., Korbin, M., Koppel, M., Kudsk, P., Mesterhazy, A., Sosnowska, D., Zimnoch-Guzowska, E. and Messéan, A. (2018), Advocating a need for suitable breeding approaches to boost integrated pest management: a European perspective. Pest. Manag. Sci. doi: 10.1002/ps.4818
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