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

• Key resources for crops and topics

• 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: Biofumigation

Fact sheet: Managing Pesticide Resistance 2015

For further information please contact Anne-Maree Boland (03) 9882 2670 or Gordon Rogers 0418 51 7777.

Get involved - Click here to complete an Expression of Interest

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