**Meet the editors**

Harsimran "Rosie" Gill has a PhD in Entomology from University of Florida, USA. She has published 53 articles that include 16 peer-reviewed research articles, 7 non refereed articles, 5 book chapters, 19 extension articles, and 6 newspaper and magazine articles and has delivered 26 local, national, and international oral and poster presentations. She has reviewed more than 70 articles

from renowned national and international journals and served as an editor for many national and international journals. She won several research and travel awards and has won awards from the university for being the best student and from the Entomological Society of America for active participation. She has been working on pest management research, extension, and teaching for the last 15 years. Currently, she is working as a freelance editor and researcher at Cornell University, USA.

Gaurav Goyal earned his PhD in Entomology at University of Florida, USA, and has authored many refereed and non refereed publications throughout his career. He has worked on various components of IPM in his career including cultural, chemical, molecular, and behavioral control methods of insect control and has presented his research at local, national, and international conferences.

Currently, he is working as an agronomist with Monsanto and supporting farmers in handling crop issues related to pest management, nutrient deficiencies, and other crop issues throughout the season and therefore growing better corn and soybean crops.

## Contents

## **Preface XI**



## Preface

The idea of pest control is rarely discussed without referring to the concept of integrated pest management, or most commonly used as IPM. IPM is a holistic approach for pest con‐ trol that seeks to optimize the use of combinations of different methods or options to man‐ age a whole pest spectrum in particular cropping system while minimizing risks to people and the environment. Several techniques of pest management have been used in the past and are currently being used by farmers, researchers, and others, but it is even more impor‐ tant in the current global pest scenario to utilize the pest management strategies in an effec‐ tive and holistic approach for them to be available in the future. Very often a pest management approach gets discovered and then over-utilized to such an extent that it comes at the verge of extinction due to either development of resistance against it or envi‐ ronment impact of this. Moreover, individual pest management techniques aim toward bringing the pest population down to a level, which is either not cost-effective or not sus‐ tainable in the long run, and the pest population tends to bounce back once the control measure is taken away.

IPM approaches the pest management in such a way that the pest management is achieved by utilizing many pest management strategies in a way that the control achieved is cost-ef‐ fective and sustainable over generations. Since the idea is to bring the pest population below threshold level, IPM is more sustainable. The pest population remains suppressed for long time and therefore prevents the need for frequent pest management and therefore reducing cost. Many pest management professionals rely on chemicals to control the pests. IPM there‐ fore aids in protecting environment by preventing the use of many chemicals and instead relying on the combination of pest management approaches. Some of the pest management techniques used in IPM are biological control, cultural control, mechanical control, physical control, chemical control, etc. IPM is used in agriculture, horticulture, structural pest man‐ agement, turf pest management, ornamental pest management, and human habitations. In‐ sect pest management is a subsystem of IPM, and these two terms are used as synonymous most of the time.

The book *Integrated Pest Management (IPM) - Environmentally Sound Pest Management* is in‐ tended to provide an overview of eco-friendly options for pest management in agricultural cropping systems. Chemicals have been long used worldwide in the past for management of agricultural pests. Due to their potential negative effects on human health; environment in‐ cluding soil, water, and air; and others, chemicals have to be used very judiciously. Private companies are developing the pest management chemicals themselves or through third-par‐ ty contracts including public universities that produce huge amount of data on chemical ef‐ ficacy and safety before chemical registration and the use of chemicals in agriculture. Comparatively not much attention is given to other control methods, which are either be‐

cause those control methods are not very effective compared to chemicals or not much re‐ search has been done to improve that method. The book focuses on some of those pest management methods that have been employed worldwide highlighting the major problem and issues and possible attempts to identify promising lines and directions for future re‐ search and implementation. Many researchers have contributed to the publication of this book. We aimed to compile information from a wide diversity of sources into a single vol‐ ume in forming this book. We begin with historical review of IPM concepts, strategies, and some experiences in applications of IPMS in Latin America. The rest of the six chapters offer information on pest management approaches alternative to chemicals. The chapters include pest control in organic agricultural system through preventive and curative measures; the use of entomopathogenic nematodes in pest management; advances in production, storage, application techniques, genetic improvement, and safety of entomopathogenic and mollus‐ coparasitic nematodes, which are important parasites of many insect and mollusks, respec‐ tively; review of performance of popular insect pheromones used in Vietnam; semiochemicals use in IPM environmentally compatible strategies to reduce pest population under economic threshold levels; and management of agriculture pests using detergents and soaps as parts of IPM scheme.

The inclusion of different methods for pest management globally will make this book of sig‐ nificance to researchers, scientists, graduate students, growers, policy makers, and other professionals who can make use of compiled information from this book. Environment safe‐ ty is one of the top concerns these days with growers either looking for or forced by policy makers toward more environment-friendly options than ever before. This book is not in‐ tended to provide all the alternative pest management methods but to provide many of the common ones evaluated by researchers and with feasibility over grower's farm. We hope that this book will continue to meet the expectations and needs of anyone interested in the topic to learn more and understand different IPM options.

> **Harsimran Kaur Gill, PhD,** Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

> > **Gaurav Goyal, PhD,** Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO, USA
