Integrated Crop Protection - Helping vegetable growers protect crops
Protecting crops in sustainable ways is vital for Australian vegetable producers to improve productivity and profitability.Crop protection practices, capabilities and attitudes differ in the levy paying vegetable industry. Markets and consumers expect pesticide use to be minimised. Pesticides may have detrimental effects on people who use them and the environment. A reduction in the use of pesticides (especially class S6 and S7, wide spectrum products) and crop protection costs is desirable.Integrated Crop Protection (ICP) and progressing along the continuum towards increasingly advanced levels of implementation and adoption on farm is one way of achieving sustainable and cost effective crop protection.
There is currently an extensive amount of ICP information from previous projects and investment that can be built upon. It is important that this information is accessible, practical and relevant to individual commercial farming operations, rather than generating more information.The project website brings together the key resources for growers and advisors to make decisions on their farms.This project, being delivered by RMCG, AHR and IPM Technologies, aims to work with growers, advisors and other industry service providers to:
Improve awareness, knowledge, capacity and decision-making about pests, weeds and diseases
Improve management of chemicals (Good Plant Protection Practice [GPPP])
Apply Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
Improve management of pests, weeds and diseases appropriate to the farming system (ICP).
The project will establish and deliver the following activities from 2014 to 2017:
Regional demonstration sites
Grower groups
Master classes/think tanks/ champion networking
Advisor engagement and training
Benchmarking activities
Short videos show why leading growers are trying new practices and how they are integrating these into their businesses
These activities will be adjusted and refined on an annual basis to ensure the needs of growers and the industry continue to be met. This will enable the Australian vegetable industry to respond to current and future crop protection challenges and opportunities.
Resources
Fact sheet: Managing Soilborne Diseases
Fact sheet: Spray Application Basics
Fact sheet: Mega Pests — The Basics of Protecting your Crops
Fact sheet: Mega Pests — Chewing and Biting
Fact sheet: IPM Approach for DBM in Brassicas
Fact sheet: Managing Pesticide Resistance 2015
For further information please contact Anne-Maree Boland (03) 9882 2670 or Gordon Rogers 0418 51 7777.
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