Grower Education
A potential obstacle to the adoption of biological pest control measures is growers sticking to the familiar use of pesticides, particularly since it has been claimed that many of the pests that are controlled today using pesticides, actually became pests because pesticide use reduced or eliminated natural predators. A method of increasing grower adoption of biocontrol involves letting growers learn by doing, for example showing them simple field experiments, having observations of live predation of pests, or collections of parasitised pests. In the Philippines, early season sprays against leaf folder caterpillars were common practice, but growers were asked to follow a ‘rule of thumb’ of not spraying against leaf folders for the first 30 days after transplanting; participation in this resulted in a reduction of insecticide use by 1/3 and a change in grower perception of insecticide use.
Read more about this topic: Biological Pest Control
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