What is in this article?:
- Arizona Veg IPM: vegetable pest control, lettuce drop, weed seeds
- Lettuce drop: aerial infection
- Weed seeds and pre-emergent herbicides
- Updated best management practices for insect control in vegetables focus on shifting pest spectrums, selective pesticide technologies, resistance management, maximum residue levels, and other issues.
- For lettuce, the initial application of fungicides during the rosette stage, about 30 to 40 days before harvest, has been shown to significantly reduce the incidence of lettuce drop caused by airborne infections of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum.
- Most pre-emergent herbicides do not kill dormant weed seeds – in most cases the seeds must first germinate and contact the herbicide before the seeds are killed.
More About:
The latest Arizona Vegetable Integrated Pest Management Update from the University of Arizona (UA) Cooperative Extension in Yuma.
Best management practices for pest control in vegetables
By John Palumbo, UA Research Scientist and Extension Specialist
In 2008 a group of research and Extension vegetable entomologists and crop consultants from vegetable-producing states met to discuss pest management issues, plus challenges and opportunities confronting the fresh vegetable industry.
From that workshop, best management practice (BMP) recommendations were developed. A continuation of that meeting was held in 2009 and focused on refining the BMPs for vegetable insect control, and in general terms, defined a number of best practices for successful insect management in vegetable crops.
In addition, based on the cumulative experiences of the participating entomologists, the strengths and weaknesses of a number of new pesticide technologies (registered products and compounds under development) were identified. These included Radiant, Pyrifluquinazon, Oberon, Movento, Rimon, Coragen, Synapse, and Cyazypyr.
A number of important issues, challenges, and opportunities in insect control in vegetable crops were discussed based on regional perspectives. Among the topics discussed were shifting pest spectrums, trends toward selective pesticide technologies, resistance management, MRLs, and other production issues.
A copy of the 2009 BMPs generated from those discussions can be found at this link.
Contact Palumbo: (928) 928-782-3836 or jpalumbo@ag.arizona.edu.
