**4. Crop protection practices in organic farming**

Practices and tactics used in organic farming are based on the three management strategies, which include prevention, monitoring, and suppression. These practices will be intensively discussed in the following paragraphs:

#### **4.1 Identification and monitoring of crop pests**

Crop pests include insects, weed, plant pathogens, invertebrate, and vertebrate animals. Identification of insect pests and their natural enemies is an important step in any pest management program. Insect pests and natural enemies could be identified using keys and field guides or otherwise consulting an official identification

bodies. Unlike insect pests, plant pathogens including fungi, bacteria, virus, and nematodes are difficult to identify in the field and may need laboratory diagnosis. However, signs of insect damage and symptoms of plant diseases may be easily distinguished in the field. Weeds could be easily identified using key and field guides.

Monitoring is the regular inspection or scouting of field crops for pests, including insects, pathogens, nematodes, and weeds, to determine their abundance and level of damage. It serves as an early warning system for the presence of pests and diseases providing information for decision-making regarding management action and evaluation of control methods. Insect pests can be monitored through visual observation, pheromone and light traps, sticky traps, water traps, yellow traps, sweep nets, beating trays, and pitfall traps. Scouting data are used to develop economic thresholds, a useful decision-making tool to start control action when a pest population reaches or exceeds the specified economic threshold.

### **4.2 Tactics used for pest prevention and suppression in organic farming**

A successful integrated pest management (IPM) program in organic farming incorporates a variety of pest management tactics such as cultural, mechanical/ physical, biological, and biopesticide (allowed for organic use) tactics individually or in combination. Each control tactic, discussed below, employs a different set of mechanisms for preventing and suppressing pest populations.

#### *4.2.1 Cultural pest control*

The goal of cultural control is to alter the environment, the condition of the host, or the behavior of the pest to prevent or suppress an infestation. It disrupts the normal relationship between the pest and the host and makes the pest less likely to survive, grow, or reproduce [13]. In agricultural crops, crop rotation, selection of crop plant varieties, timing of planting and harvesting, irrigation management, crop rotation, and use of trap crops help reduce populations of weeds, microorganisms, insects, mites, and other pests. These cultural practices are more preventive than curative and thus may require planning in advance [13–15]. The diversified habitat provides these parasites and predators with alternative food sources, shelter, and breeding sites [16]. Tillage can cause destruction of the insect or its overwintering chamber, removal of the protective cover, elimination of food plants, and disruption of the insect life cycle generally killing many of the insects through direct contact, starvation or exposure to predators, and weather [13]. The use of trap strip crops can control insect damage at the field edges and at the same time avail refuge and food for beneficial insects. Insect resistance is an important component of pest and disease management. Quality-based resistance can be induced in plants through management of nutrients and irrigation. Intercropping and biodiversity play an important role in pest management in organic farming [13].

### *4.2.2 Mechanical and physical pest control*

One of the simplest methods of physical or mechanical pest control is handpicking insects or hand-pulling weeds. This method works best in those situations where the pests are visible and easily accessible [17]. Physical or mechanical disruption of pests also includes such methods as mowing, hoeing, flaming, soil solarization, tilling or cultivation, and washing [17]. Animals such as kangaroos cause damage by eating yellow dates; hence, fruit bunches are covered to protect them from such damage [18].

Devices that can be used to exclude insect pests from reaching crops in organic farming include, but not limited to, row covers, protective nets with varying mesh

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*Insect Pest Management in Organic Farming System DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84483*

collect them into a collection box.

*4.2.3 Biological pest control*

*4.2.4 Biopesticide control*

among farmers [21, 22].

organic crops.

size according to the pest in question, and sticky paper collars that prevent crawling insects from climbing the trunks of trees. Water pressure sprays can be employed to dislodge insect pests such as aphids and mites from the plant surface. Insect vacuums, on the other hand, could be used to remove insects from plant surface and

Biological methods are the use of beneficial organisms that can be used in the field to reduce insect pest populations. Biological control is grouped into three categories: importation or classical biological control, which introduces pest's natural enemies to the locations where they do not occur naturally, augmentation involves the supplemental release of natural enemies, boosting the naturally occurring population, and conservation, which involves the conservation of existing natural enemies in the environment [19]. The role of beneficial species on pests is of relatively greater importance in organic agriculture than in conventional agriculture, because organic growers do not have recourse to highly potent insecticides (such as

Biopesticides are characterized by having minimal or no risk to the environment, natural enemies, and nontarget organisms due to their mode of action, rapid degradation, and the small amounts applied to control pests. They are slow acting, have a relatively critical application times, and suppress rather than eliminate a pest population [20]. Biopesticides have limited field persistence and shorter shelf life and present no residue problems. Thus, they are approved for pest management in

**5. Plant protection products (PPPs) authorized in organic farming**

The crop protection in organic farming is holistic, and, hence, it is extremely difficult to separate inputs as plant nutrients (fertilizers) and plant protectants (pesticides) [6]. Plant protection products authorized for use in organic farming differ among countries depending on the differences in crops, pests, and cropping systems, as well as regulations and standards adopted by these countries [21]. Organically approved pesticides fall into the following groups: biorational, inorganics, botanicals, microbial, oils, and soaps. The most widely used as insecticides are microorganisms, natural pyrethrins, rapeseed oil, and paraffin; the most widely used as fungicides are copper compounds, sulfur, and microorganisms. The rules of organic agriculture allow the use of unregistered products such as nettle slurry, which is used against aphids. It can be prepared on the farm or shared

The basic substance concept was introduced by the EU regulation 1107 in 2009.

It was defined as substance not intendedly used for plant protection purposes; however, it can still be used in protection of plants either directly or as a diluent. According to this definition, substances used as foodstuff such as vinegar and sunflower oil can be used as plant protection [23]. The basic substances of plant and animal origin, which are used as foodstuff, can be legally used in crop protection in organic farming with the exception of being used as herbicides. These basic substances include chitosan hydrochloride, fructose, sucrose, *Salix* spp. cortex, and *Equisetum arvense* L. (field horsetail) which are used as elicitors of the plant

synthetic pyrethroids) with which to tackle major pest problems [13].

size according to the pest in question, and sticky paper collars that prevent crawling insects from climbing the trunks of trees. Water pressure sprays can be employed to dislodge insect pests such as aphids and mites from the plant surface. Insect vacuums, on the other hand, could be used to remove insects from plant surface and collect them into a collection box.
