**1. Introduction**

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230 Soybean - Pest Resistance

In most developing countries, agriculture is the driving force for broad-based economic growth and low agricultural productivity is a major cause of poverty, food insecurity, and malnutrition. However, food production per unit of land is limited by many factors, includ‐ ing fertilizer, water, genetic potential of the crop and the organisms that feed on or compete with food plants. Despite the plant-protection measures adopted to protect the principal crops, 42.1% of attainable production is lost as result of attack by pests [1]. Therefore, accel‐ erated public investments are needed to facilitate agricultural growth through high-yielding varieties with adequate resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses, environment-friendly pro‐ duction technologies, availability of reasonably priced inputs in time, dissemination of infor‐ mation, improved infrastructure and markets, and education in basic health care.

Soybean (*Glycine max* (L.) Merrill) is one of the most important and widely grown oil seed crops in the world. Successful production in soybean cropping systems is hampered due to the incidence of several insect pests such as *Etiella zinkienella* Treitschke, *Tetranychus urticae* Koch, *Thrips tabaci* Lindeman, *Spodoptera exigua* (Hübner) and *Helicoverpa armigera* (Hübner) [2-9]. Among these pests, *H. armigera* represents a significant challenge to soybean produc‐ tion in different soybean-growing areas around the world. *Helicoverpa armigera* is an impor‐ tant pest of many crops in many parts of the world and is reported to attack more than 60 plant species belonging to more than 47 families (such as soybean, cotton, sorghum, maize, sunflower, groundnuts, cowpea, tomato and green pepper) [10-12]. This noctuid pest is dis‐ tributed eastwards from southern Europe and Africa through the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia, and thence to China, Japan, Australia and the Pacific Islands [13]. The pest status of this species can be derived from its four life history characteristics (polyphagy, high mobility, high fecundity and a facultative diapause) that enable it to survive in unsta‐

© 2013 Fathipour and Sedaratian; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 Fathipour and Sedaratian; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

ble habitats and adapt to seasonal changes. Direct damage of the larvae of this noctuid pest to flowering and fruiting structures together with extensive insecticide spraying resulted in low crop yield and high costs of production [14].

As discussed above, integrated management is typically problematic in cropping systems, es‐ pecially in the case of *H. armigera* on soybean. However, our intent in this section is not to devel‐ op an exhaustive review of all resources that may possibly contribute to more effective pest management for the future, but to select several topic areas that will make essential contribu‐ tions to sustainable soybean cropping systems. Although the past research focused on devel‐ oping various pest management tactics that would be packaged into an integrated pest management strategy, we have selected several types of resources for our discussions, realiz‐ ing that there are other resources can be used in developing IPM programmes. Furthermore, to generate a comprehensive management programme, we present our perspectives on future re‐ search needs and directions for sustainable management of this pest in soybean cropping sys‐ tems such as tri-trophic interactions [22], importance of modeling of insect population [23], crucial role of forecasting and monitoring programmes in IPM [24], interactions among differ‐ ent management tactics in IPM [25] and significance of biotechnology and genetically modified plants in IPM. Therefore, considering the importance of *H. armigera* in successful production of soybean, this review intends to provide an appropriate document to the scientific community

Integrated Management of *Helicoverpa armigera* in Soybean Cropping Systems

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/54522

233

Although many IPM programmes were initiated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in several parts of the world, it was only in the late 1970s that IPM gained momentum [26]. Through‐ out the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the absence of powerful pesticides, crop protec‐ tion specialists relied on knowledge of pest biology and cultural practices to produce multi tactical control strategies that, in some instances, were precursors of modern IPM systems [27]. That stance changed in the early 1940s with the advent of organosynthetic insecticides when protection specialists began to focus on testing chemicals, to the detriment of studying pest biology and non-insecticidal methods of control [15]. The period from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s has been called the dark ages of pest control. By the late 1950s, how‐ ever, warnings about the risks of the preponderance of insecticides in pest control began to be heard. The publication of the book "Silent Spring" by Rachael Carson in 1962 ignited widespread debate on the real and potential hazards of pesticides. This still ongoing dia‐ logue includes scientists in many disciplines, environmentalists, and policy makers. Howev‐ er, "Silent Spring" contributed much to the development of alternatives to pesticides for pest management purposes, augmented global interests in developing cropping systems that limit crop pests, and added much to the environmental movement [26]. In fact, wide‐ spread concerns about the detrimental impact of pesticides on the environment and related health issues were responsible in large part for the development of the concept of IPM.

The seed of the idea of integrated control appears in a paper by Hoskins *et al.* [28]. Conceiva‐ bly, "integrated control" was uttered by entomologists long before formally appearing in a publication. However, it was the series of papers starting with Smith and Allen [29] that es‐ tablished integrated control as a new trend in economic entomology. Towards the end of the 1960s, integrated control was well entrenched both in the scientific literature and in the prac‐

for sustainable management of *H. armigera* in soybean cropping systems.

**2. History of terminology and definition of IPM**

Different methods have been applied to control *H. armigera* in order to improve the quality and quantity of soybean production in cropping systems of this oil seed crop. However, syn‐ thetic insecticides including organophosphates, synthetic pyrethroids and biorational com‐ pounds are the main method for *H. armigera* control in different parts of the world. This wide use of pesticides is of environmental concern and has repeatedly led to the develop‐ ment of pesticide resistance in this pest. Furthermore, the deleterious effects of insecticides on nontarget organisms including natural enemies are among the major causes of pest out‐ breaks. It is therefore necessary to develop a novel strategy to manage population of *H. armi‐ gera* and reduce the hazardous of synthetic chemicals.

The common trend towards reducing reliance on synthetic insecticides for control of insect pests in agriculture, forestry, and human health has renewed worldwide interest in integrat‐ ed pest management (IPM) programmes. IPM is the component of sustainable agriculture with the most robust ecological foundation [15]. IPM not only contributes to the sustainabili‐ ty of agriculture, it also serves as a model for the practical application of ecological theory and provides a paradigm for the development of other agricultural system components. The concept of IPM is becoming a practicable and acceptable approach among the entomologists in recent past all over the world and focuses on the history, concepts, and the integration of available control methods into integrated programmes. However, this approach advocates an integration of all possible or at least some of the known natural means of control with or without insecticides so that the best pest management in terms of economics and mainte‐ nance of pest population below economic injury level (EIL) is achieved.

Fundamental of effective IPM programmes is the development of appropriate pest manage‐ ment strategies and tactics that best interface with cropping system-pest situations. Depend‐ ing on the type of pest, however, some of the primary management strategies could be selected. In the case of *H. armigera*, several management tactics should be considered to im‐ plement a comprehensive integrated management. Potential of some of the control tactics to reduce population density of *H. armigera* in different cropping systems were evaluated by several researchers and attempts have been made to develop integrated management ap‐ proach for *H. armigera* using host plant resistance [2, 4, 6, 11] including transgenic Bt crops [16], biological control (predators and parasitoids) [17], interference methods including sex pheromones [18], biopesticides (especially commercial formulations of *Bacillus thuringiensis*) [19], cultural practices (including appropriate crop rotations, trap crops, planting date and habitat complexity) [20] and selective insecticides [21]. Likewise there remains a need for on‐ going research to develop a suite of control tactics and integrate them into IPM systems for sustainable management of *H. armigera* in cropping systems. Keeping this in view, integra‐ tion of these methods based on the ecological data especially thermal requirements of this pest and its crucial role in forecasting programme of *H. armigera* could lead a successful inte‐ grated management for this pest in soybean cropping systems.

As discussed above, integrated management is typically problematic in cropping systems, es‐ pecially in the case of *H. armigera* on soybean. However, our intent in this section is not to devel‐ op an exhaustive review of all resources that may possibly contribute to more effective pest management for the future, but to select several topic areas that will make essential contribu‐ tions to sustainable soybean cropping systems. Although the past research focused on devel‐ oping various pest management tactics that would be packaged into an integrated pest management strategy, we have selected several types of resources for our discussions, realiz‐ ing that there are other resources can be used in developing IPM programmes. Furthermore, to generate a comprehensive management programme, we present our perspectives on future re‐ search needs and directions for sustainable management of this pest in soybean cropping sys‐ tems such as tri-trophic interactions [22], importance of modeling of insect population [23], crucial role of forecasting and monitoring programmes in IPM [24], interactions among differ‐ ent management tactics in IPM [25] and significance of biotechnology and genetically modified plants in IPM. Therefore, considering the importance of *H. armigera* in successful production of soybean, this review intends to provide an appropriate document to the scientific community for sustainable management of *H. armigera* in soybean cropping systems.
