Module 4

Control methods in Integrated Pest Management

Name: ________________________________

Course: _______________________________

Section: ________ Date: ___________

1. Introduction
Integrated pest management is the blending of all effective, economical,
practical and environment and ecologically sound pest control methods into a
single but flexible approach in managing pests. It is a thorough understanding
of the pest ecology, beneficial insects and their interaction with the crop that
provides a range of strategies that must be integrated to achieve economic and
environmental sustainability.
IPM maintains the population of any pest, or pests at or below the level that
causes damage or loss, and which minimizes adverse impacts on society and
environment. It has different tactics that includes chemical, biological, cultural,
physical, genetic, and regulatory procedures. Integrated pest management has
a goal to optimize pest control in relation to the total plant production system in
the light of economic, social, and environmental conditions

2. Learning Outcome

At the end of this module the students should be able to;

a. Know the different control methods in integrated pest management
b. Determine the difference of each method in integrated pest management
c. Apply the different control methods on their chosen crop.

3. Learning Content

A control method refers to the tactics use to kill a pest. It is part of

the integrated pest management.
Integrated pest management refers to the mixed practices or
mixture of control methods used to suppress the pest population. It is a
mixture or programmed strategy to circumvent pests. It contains different
strategies that generally addresses an endemic, pandemic or any
pestiferous issues.
 The following are some of the different control methods and or
procedures applicable in preparing an integrated pest management;

1. CULTURAL CONTROL
Cultural control refers to the agronomic and horticultural practices done
during land preparation, production up to gathering. It involves purposeful
manipulation of the environment to make it unfavorable for pest development
and survival. It involves the manipulation of the crops and land which are
designed to adversely affect the pest. Example of practices are time of
planting, use of short maturing variety, irrigation and water management,
fertilizer application, weeding, land preparation and tillage, clean culture,
mulching and others. It also includes practices like multicropping,
monocropping, and the likes.
This method involves alteration of the environment to encourage the survival of
natural enemies and/ or put stress on pest survival.
Such tactics can be grouped into:

a. Crop Manipulation
 Multiple cropping
 Cover cropping
 Pruning for air and light penetration
 Trellising
 Defruiting
 Plant spacing

b. Land Manipulation
 Tillage
 No tillage
 Irrigation
 Flooding
 Fallow
 Soil-less culture (hydrophonics)
 Proper drainage

c. Cultural Management
 Mulching
 Early planting
 Late planting
 Fertilization
 Adjust time of harvest
 Crop rotation
 Use of trap crops

d. Sanitary Measures
  Removal and burning of infested part
 Weeding
 Farm waste decomposition
 Destruction of plant residues
 Elimination of breeding sites
 Use of clean seeds/planting materials

Further, to elaborate some practices are define or describe as follows;

Multicropping as opposed to monocropping is the growing of several
crops/species in the same piece of land at the same time or in sequence within
a year. There are several types of multicropping: intercropping, multistorey
planting, relay cropping, and crop rotation.
Intercropping. This is the growing of two or more crops in alternate rows
in the same piece of land in the same season per year. The crops are of
different family and are supposed to receive benefits from their association.
Examples are corn + mungbean intercropping, corn + peanut intercropping.
Multistorey Planting. In this system, three or more crops of varying
depths of root proliferation are grown in a storey fashion. Crops consist of
perennials and annuals. Smaller crops are supposed to have some degree of
tolerance to shading. Examples are mixtures of papaya+ corn+ legumes +
crucifers (lowland cropping system) with botanical plants around the perimeter
of the farm; ‘lanzones’ + coffee + pineapple + ginger (upland/highland cropping
system) with botanicals in the perimeter of the farm.
Relay Cropping. This is the planting of crop even before the harvest of
the main crop. The most common of this type is the rice-mungbean relay
cropping. The mungbean is usually planted 3–5 days before the rice crop is
harvested and when the soil is still moist. The objective is to take advantage of
the residual moisture and nutrients from the soil particularly in rainfed areas.
Mungbeans are inoculated with Rhizobium for purposes of N fixation.
Crop Rotation. This is the growing of crops alternately in different parts
of the farm in planned fashion to protect the soil from erosion and to build the
fertility. The rotation is basically that of crops providing effective protection/soil
building and a row crop. Again legumes are generally used as protection
effective crops and cereals/vegetables as row crops. In hilly or rolling areas, it is
important to provide hedgerows of grass + legume trees in the buffer strips to
further arrest or control erosion. These types of multicropping provide some or
all of the following advantages:
• Promote diversification, which enables the distribution of risk in farming
and continuous supply of different products from the farm.
 • Reduce pest infestation by the repellent effects of the crops or the non-
preference of the pest to the crops. The diversity increases disease resistance
and makes it more difficult for pests and microbial pathogens to find certain
host plant species.
• Improve soil fertility by mixing legumes, such as beans that improve N
supply of the non-legumes in a later term.
• Increase nutrient and water use efficiency by exploiting the different
depths of soil layers.
• Provide more dense vegetation through a combination of several crops
resulting in better soil cover, thus suppressing weeds more efficiently.

2. BIOLOGICAL CONTROL
Biological control refers to the action of parasites, predators, pathogens
in maintaining another organism density at lower average than would occur in
their absence. It plays an important role in integrated pest management and
organic agriculture. It may be slow in effect but can last longer: inexpensive and
harmless to living organisms and the ecosystem.
Biological control is both use in plant pathology and entomology to mean
control of one organism by another. However, the concept itself has developed
along quite lines within the two disciplines. Whereas entomologist introduced a
specific parasitic insect from one country to control an insect pest in another.
First work in plant pathology emphasize management of resident antagonistic
soil microorganisms through soil organic amendments, crop rotation, or burying
of the residue of diseased plants. The recognized mechanism of biological
control of plant pathogens were also different from those of insects, namely,
antibiotics first (Sanford, 1926), competition second (Millard and Taylor, 1927),
and parasitism third (1932).
Biological control includes the use of natural enemies and beneficial
microorganisms to reduce insect pest population and disease incidence. There
are three agents in biocon namely; parasitoids, predators and pathogens.
1. Parasitoids is from the root word parasite. It refers to the entomological
insect parasite. Parasitoids as opposed to parasites destroy the host.
Includes organisms that require only one host to complete their life cycle.
A parasitoid is usually smaller than the host (pest).

Types of parasitoid
1. Primary parasites
2. Secondary parasites or hyperparasites
Classification of parasitoid according to the stages of the insect in which they
develop
1. Egg parasitoids
2. larval parasitoids
3. nymphal parasitoids
4. pupal parasitoids
5. adult parasitoids
The desirable attributes of a parasitoids are:
 can adopt and survive year round in the host environment.
 has higher reproductive capacity.
 has high host seeking ability
 life history synchronized with the host.
 should be highly specific
 has the ability to disperse equally with the host
 best to have no hyperparasitoids
 an advantage if the female can detect parasitized host

Example of parasitoids;
Trichogramma evanescens (Hymenoptera) – parasitizes eggs of the corn borer.
Xanthopimpla stemmator (wasp) – parasitizes larvae of striped stem borer
Diadegma semiclausum (wasp) – preys on Diamond Backmoth. A parasitoid of
diamond back moth (effective in the highlands or places with cold climates like
some parts of the Cordillera Region and some parts of Mindanao).
Cotesia glomerata (small dark colored wasp) – preys on DBM, Asian corn
borer. A parasitoid of diamond back moth which is effective in the lowlands.

B. Predators
Predators are organisms that kills and devour smaller organisms for
survival. Other examples of predators are earwigs, lady beetle, ground beetle,
nabid bugs, lace wings, dragonfly, syrphids flies.
Coccinelid beetle (Cheilomenes sexmaculatus and Micraspis dicolor)
Predatory field crickets an excellent egg predator of most vegetable pests.
Praying mantis predators of vegetable pests.

C. Pathogens
Plant pathogens, like other living things, have existed throughout their
evolutionary history with the problem of obtaining, protecting, and storing food
in the presence of aggressive competitors. Those in existence today are the
best that nature has produced, a self-evident demonstration of survival of the
fittest. Plant pathogens are usually viewed as aggressors, and mechanisms of
defense in the disease process have been considered mainly from the
perspective of the host. Some microbial products also have other positive
effect on crops such as promoting plant growth and nutrition (biofertilizers and
phytostimulators) and/or facilitating interaction between the host plant and other
beneficial microorganisms.
Pathogens refers to microorganisms that cause pathologies to their
hosts. These are also termed as entomogenous microorganisms. Example in;
fungi are Beauveria bassiana, Metarrhizium sp; bacteria is B. thuringiensis
(Dipel, Agree, Xentari), virus-like NPV, protozoa and nematodes.
Among the effective entomopathogens are:
1. Metarhizium species
Metarhizium species are known as green muscardine fungi. These are
easily recognized a few days after death of the arthropod when the fungus
grows out of the arthropod integument and forms reproductive structure.
Initially, fungal hyphae appear white, but as conidia form and mature it
becomes olive green in color.
Metarhizium species are also known to produce compounds that are
toxic to arthropods and presumably aid in killing the host, suppressing host’s
immune defenses and fending off potential microbial competitors.
2. Verticillium lecanii
Verticillium lecanii is highly potent against various sucking pests. It is
known as a “white halo” fungus because of the white mycelial growth on the
edges of infected scale insects.
The conidia (spores) are slimy and attach to the cuticle of insects.
The fungus infects insects by producing hyphae from germinating spores
that penetrate the insects integument.
The fungus then destroys the internal contents and the insect dies. The
fungus eventually grows out through the cuticle and sporulates on the outside
of the body. Infected insects appear as white to yellowish cottony particles.
3. Nomuraea species
Nomuraea species is a green muscardine fungus characterized by the
formation of mono or synnematous conidiophores that bear whorls of phialides.
 Infection process starts with the adhesion of conidia on the insect cuticle.
At the end of the infection cycle, mycelia emerge from the cuticle and produce
coniciophores.
Nomuraea rileyi secretes a proteinaceous “substance inhibiting larval
molt and metamorphosis.
4. Beauveria bassianaof nutrients,
Beauvaria bassiana is also called the white muscardine. When spores of
this fungus come in contact with the cuticle of susceptible insect, they
germinate and grow directly through the cuticle to the inner body, producing
toxins and draining the insect, eventually killing it. It then grows back out
through the softer portions of the cuticle, covering the insect with a layer of
white mold.
B. bassiana is a naturally occurring fungus in soils throughout the world.
5. Entomopathogenic nematodes
Entomopathogenic nematode are certainly more specific and are not a
threat to the environment. Each ineffective juvenile carries bacteria in the gut,
and releases the bacteria into the body cavity of the insect after penetration.
The bacteria kill the host in 24 hours.
Biological control agents have a wide range of attractive properties that
include host specificity, lack of toxic residue, no phytotoxic effects, safe to
humans, and the potential for pest management to be self-sustaining.
Steps for the implementation of biological control projects
1. Exploration
2. Importation
3. Mass production
4. Introduction
5. Colonization
6. Evaluation

3. USE OF RESISTANT VARIETIES/PLANTS

Use of resistant varieties are important in relation to other methods of
control. It is economical and can be used in isolated areas where technology of
insect pest control is still inadequate. It can be used in places where the margin
of profit is low.
Resistance in plant involves complex biological relationships between the
pest insects and its host. The measurable effect makes it possible to
categorize the causes of resistance to 3 which are as follows:
 a) None Preference - a situation when plants display resistance by exerting
an adverse effect on the insect behavior such as oviposition, feeding and
shelter.
b) Antibiosis - a situation when the resistant plants exert an adverse
effect/influence on the growth and survival of the insects.
Chemical factors in Antibiosis
Chemicals present in plants imparts resistance against insect pest
1. DIMBOA (Dihydroxy methyl benzoxazin) - Against European corn borer
(Ostrinia nubilalis)
2. Gossypol (Polyphenol) - American bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera)
3. Sinigrin - Aphids (Myzus persicae)
4. Cucurbitacin - Cucurbit fruit flies
5. Salicylic acid - Rice stem borer
Physical factors in antibiosis
 Thick cuticle, glandular hairs, silica deposits, tight leaf sheath, etc.

c) Tolerance - a situation when the plants are capable of supporting the

insects without loss in plant vigor and without decrease in yield. It is the
ability of a plant to sustain injury or recover through increased growth
and produce a crop in spite of insect attack.

4. PHYSICAL/MECHANICAL CONTROL
The method is said to be physical control if it involves mechanically the
removal or destruction of pest insects by using temperature, humidity energy
and sounds. Examples of physical control are as follows:
a) Physical removal – the removal of infestation foci such as commodity
residues, secondary or unproductive primary hosts for field crops.
b) Physical exclusion – this method is highly applicable in the storage
facilities by excluding the treated grains to avoid re-infestations by pest
insects.
c) Grain drying – this is a practice to reduce the grain moisture content
and therefore become less prune to insect pests attack especially the
beetles of rice in the storage.
d) Light trapping – this method of control is highly applicable to pest
nocturnal insects by attracting/trapping them by the use of lights at night
time.
 e) Removal of insects (e.g. egg masses) and damaged plants from the
field.

5. BEHAVIORAL CONTROL / PHEROMONES

Genetic Control
Genetic Control – involves the manipulation of the pest’s genetic components
or other mechanism of inheritance.
Alteration of insect’s fitness - it shows promise by using mass rearing
techniques to introduce lethal genes altering the development of an insect
population.
Autocidal Control – it is a genetic manipulation to produce sterility.

Genetic Manipulation
Sterile Male Technique
- involves mass breeding huge quantities of target insects in a "factory"
and sterilizing the males by exposing them to low doses of radiation. The sterile
male insects are then released by air over infested areas, where they mate with
wild females. If the sterile males vastly outnumber the fertile wild males, the
wild insects population quickly dies out

Genetically modified crops (GMCs, GM crops, or biotech crops) are

plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic
engineering techniques. In most cases, the aim is to introduce a new trait to the
plant which does not occur naturally in the species

Sterile Male Technique

Male pupae are irradiated or fed with chemosterilants and then allowed to mate
with normal wild females. The females lay infertile eggs.
Behavioral control belongs to the semio-chemicals - a term applied to
any chemical which provides information between organism sex pheromones.
The role of sex pheromones in insect control are:
– important in monitoring the pest insects
– important in mass trapping; and
– it can be used for insect mating disruption
Behavioral Control- Dispense a large amount of sex pheromone within
the crop. Disturb the normal behavior of male insects so that they cannot find
female hence interfering with mating.
Behavioral controls utilize some chemicals to modify insect pest
behavior, and control pest without the use of toxins, thereby playing an
important role in area-wide control system. At present, behavioral modification
method e.g (pheromones) have been used to confuse or trap the male
population.
Pheromones- are chemicals released by an organism into its
environment enabling it to communicate with other members of its own species.
1. Monitoring with Attractant. Baited is an important component of pest
management program. Pheromones are widely used in pest monitoring due to
the specificity, selectivity and mainly for not affecting the health of workers and
environment.
2. Food attractant can also be used for monitoring pest. In horticulture, the
technique is widely used to monitor fruit flies. In this case, Food baits are used
in traps to attract insects and pest.
3. Mating Disruption. This method consist of distributing a large amount of
synthetic sex pheromones in the field, aiming to prevent the male to find a
female, disrupting mating. Therefore, new pest generations do not occur on
treated area.
An ant lay a trail pheromone to direct other ants to a food source. Aphids
release an alarm pheromones that warns other aphids of potential danger,
usually the presence of a predator or parasites.
3.1. Attract and Kill (A&K) System) This strategy is a new pest management
technique, an extension of mating disruption, which is characterized by the
inclusion of and insecticide (killing agent) in addition to the pheromone to
achieve the same control methods as mating disruptions.
Attract and kill system effective against Alfalfa Looper. Starve alfalfa looper
adults (moths) were strongly attracted to the attract and kill station in a flight
tunnel, and 90.9 % of female moths and 87.6 % of male moths that contracted
the station died.
3.2. Push-Pull Strategy. Insect control methods exploiting natural chemical
messengers, collectively semio- chemicals, are becoming increasingly familiar.
“Push-Pull”, also called stimulo-deterrent diversion involves “pushing” the
insects away from the harvestable, economic crops, and “pull” onto a trap crop
where their population is reduced by biological control agent specific but slow-
acting insecticide.
Used for controlling agricultural pest by using repellant “push” plants and trap
“pull” plants. Cereal crops like maize or sorghum are often infested by stem
borers. Grasses planted around the perimeter of the crop attract and trap the
pest. Whereas other plants like Desmodium, planted between the rows of
maize repel the pest and control the parasitic plant STRIGA.
Push-Pull Strategy
The benefits of push-pull strategy include a lower requirement for broad
spectrum pesticides, saving these valuable materials for a “ fire fighting role”.
There is less risk of producing population resistant insect.
4. Mass Trapping. The purpose is to reduce the number of individuals of the
next generation removing only males of both insect sexes of the area. The
mass trapping, when is not enough by itself to control pest population, can be
used in combination with other methods of pest control within the philosophy of
integrated pest management.
The adult phase of thrips and whiteflies can be caught in huge numbers
with to river sticky traps.
4.1. Attractive Lures and Toxic Lures. Another aspect of behavioral control is
used of secondary plant substances they play an important role in the feeding
of monophagous or oliphagous insects. These substances are used in insect
behavioral and biology studies, such as attraction/repellence, feeding and
oviposition deterrence.
Initial control of flies in Africa used odor released by oven or buffalo urine
to attract flies to cloth. Dropped with insecticides. Later, flies were attracted to
electrified nets with these and other odorants. An alternative to conventional
insecticides could make use of insect pathogens as bio- pesticides if they can
kill the attracted insect before mating occurs.

6. PHYSICAL/ MECHANICAL CONTROL

 Refers to direct or indirect methods that destroy pests outright or make
the environment unsuitable for entry, dispersal, survival and
reproduction.

1. Physical Energy (Use of reflectors, heat sterilization of soil using

plastic sheet, shaking the tree, directly picking insects, light traps)
2. Physical Barrier (bagging, screening, sticky traps, trap nets)
3. Mechanical means (crushing, bark scraping, fly swatting, sweeping,
hosing)
4. Altered environment (lethal temperature, controlled relative humidity,
air-tight storage, clean surrounding)

7. CHEMICAL PESTICIDES
Insecticides is defined as a substance or a mixture of substances which
repel, destroy, or mitigate any insect that is considered or declared pest. This
can be classified based on the mode of entry, origin, pattern of stability,
spectrum of activity, and degree of toxicity to mammals.
1. Classification based on the mode of entry
a. Stomach insecticides -the materials exert their toxic action only after
they have been introduced into the alimentary canal through feeding on
treated substrates. Some of the examples are arsenicals, and fluorides.
b. Contact insecticides – these insecticides penetrate the insect
exocuticle and could then be transported to the site of action via the
circulatory system. Some of the examples are nicotinoids, rotenoids and
most of the synthetic insecticides.
 
c. Systemic insecticides – these insecticides are used for the control of
insects in both plants and animals. When applied to the animal the
toxicant is translocated to the untreated parts in concentration that
makes the final translocation sites toxic to insects. Examples are
Furadan, Temik, Systox.

2. Classification based on origin

a. Inorganic insecticides – insecticides that seldom contain carbon.
Arsenicals and fluorides are some of the examples.
 
b. Organic insecticides – these insecticides are characterized by organic
carbon to carbon bondings.

b. Organic insecticides –
b.1. Botanicals – the toxic principles are extracted from plants or derived
there from. Some of the examples are nicotinoids (tobacco), pyrethroids
(Chrysanthemum coccineum); rotenone (roots of Derris sp.).

b.2. Synthetic insecticides

– Organochlorine
– Organophosphates
– Carbamates
– Pyrethroids
– Insect growth regulator insecticides
– Biological insecticides
3. Classification based on the pattern of stability
a. Persistent insecticides – these are the insecticides that stay in the
environment and control the pest insects for several months and
continuously to get into the food chains. The DDT for mosquito control,
chlordane for termites control are some of the examples.
 b. Non-persistent – these are the insecticides that stay in the
environment and control pest insects for a few days only because the
insecticides are easily detoxified by any detoxifying factors like sunlight,
water, temperature and microorganisms. The insecticides in this
category are Dipel, Xentari, and some Pyrethroid insecticides like
Sumicidin and Cymbush.

4. Classification based on spectrum of activity

a. Selective insecticides – these are insecticides that are toxic to 1 or to
some but not the majority of the pest insects in the ecosystem. Some of
the examples are Dipel, Thuricide HP, Confidor, Nomolt and Perimor.
b. Non-selective/Broad spectrum insecticides – these are the
insecticides that are toxic to a wide range of insects/organisms including
the beneficial insects. Tamaron, Selecron, Pennant, Lorsban are some
of the examples of non-selective insecticides.

5. Classifications based on the degree of toxicity to mammals.

Insecticide Category Colorband LD-50 Oral
(mg/kg)
Category I Red <50
Category II Yellow50 to 500
Category III Blue 500 to 2000
Category IV Green Over 2000
8. REGULATORY CONTROL

Regulatory control refers to the prevention of entry/establishment of insects

through inspection of materials coming into a particular place especially living
plants or animals or packed materials that are likely to harbor pests and serve
as carrier for theses. Legal control tactics include all forms of legislation
designed to prevent the establishment or spread of pest populations.
Quarantines and licensing or certification programs can be effective in limiting
the movement of infested animals, seed, or breeding stock.

4. Assessment/activity

1. Choose a crop of your own. Make a comprehensive integrated pest management

program of your chosen crop.
2. Identify one pestiferous organism and make a comprehensive IPM program for it.
Example of your output for this is like the following titled “IDM for Ralstonia
solanacearum”,