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15 February 2023 Dynamic Economic Thresholds for Insecticide Applications Against Agricultural Pests: Importance of Pest and Natural Enemy Migration
Tamar Keasar, Eric Wajnberg, George Heimpel, Ian C.W. Hardy, Liora Shaltiel Harpaz, Daphna Gottlieb, Saskya van Nouhuys
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Abstract

In Integrated Pest Management programs, insecticides are applied to agricultural crops when pest densities exceed a predetermined economic threshold. Under conditions of high natural enemy density, however, the economic threshold can be increased, allowing for fewer insecticide applications. These adjustments, called ‘dynamic thresholds’, allow farmers to exploit existing biological control interactions without economic loss. Further, the ability of natural enemies to disperse from, and subsequently immigrate into, insecticide-sprayed areas can affect their biological control potential. We develop a theoretical approach to incorporate both pest and natural enemy movement across field borders into dynamic thresholds and explore how these affect insecticide applications and farmer incomes. Our model follows a pest and its specialist natural enemy over one growing season. An insecticide that targets the pest also induces mortality of the natural enemy, both via direct toxicity and reduced resource pest densities. Pest and natural enemy populations recover after spraying through within-field reproduction and by immigration from neighboring unsprayed areas.The number of insecticide applications and per-season farmer revenues are calculated for economic thresholds that are either fixed (ignoring natural enemy densities) or dynamic (incorporating them). The model predicts that using dynamic thresholds always leads to reduced insecticide application.The benefit of dynamic thresholds in reducing insecticide use is highest when natural enemies rapidly recolonize sprayed areas, and when insecticide efficacy is low. We discuss real-life situations in which monitoring of natural enemies would substantially reduce insecticide use and other scenarios where the presence of beneficial organisms may lead to threshold modifications.

Tamar Keasar, Eric Wajnberg, George Heimpel, Ian C.W. Hardy, Liora Shaltiel Harpaz, Daphna Gottlieb, and Saskya van Nouhuys "Dynamic Economic Thresholds for Insecticide Applications Against Agricultural Pests: Importance of Pest and Natural Enemy Migration," Journal of Economic Entomology 116(2), 321-330, (15 February 2023). https://doi.org/10.1093/jee/toad019
Received: 15 November 2022; Accepted: 9 January 2023; Published: 15 February 2023
JOURNAL ARTICLE
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KEYWORDS
grain storage
model
revenue
tomato
Tuta absoluta
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