BIOLOGICAL AGENTS GAIN AS SUPPLEMENT TO CHEMICAL PESTICIDES FIFTH Edition

• Published in: The morning call (Allentown, Pa.)
• Main Author: ROBERT E. LEIBY And DAVID L. DUNBAR (A free-lance story for The Morning Call)
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Allentown, Pa Tribune Interactive, LLC 16.06.1994
• ISSN: 0884-5557

More than half the nation's fruit, vegetable and major field crop producers apply some level of integrated pest management, according to the Agriculture Department's first comprehensive national study of pest control methods used in U.S. agriculture. The approach has always included a number of biological and other nonchemical pest control strategies as well as more efficient use of pesticides through monitoring pest levels. In response to growing public interest in a cleaner environment and reduced use of chemicals, biological methods are increasingly being scrutinized for use in pest management programs. The new study indicates pest monitoring, crop rotation and a few specific biological strategies, such as using pheromones to disrupt pest breeding in fruit and nut crops, were widely adopted. But few growers used beneficial insects or many of the other biocontrol methods.