Page 16 - 2019 Ag Mag

16 Integrated Pest Management
KMAland 2019
procedures that are environmen- we don’t collectively implement of synthetic organic insecticides
tally compatible, economically and continually improve our IPM in the early 1940’s (think DDT).
feasible, and socially acceptable and PRM programs, yields drop, Resistance to DDT was confirmed
to reduce pest populations to tol- cost of production rises, and pest in houseflies by 1947. New insec-
erable levels. management options become ticides came out… and with ev-
Integrated means that many more limited. So yes, we know ery new insecticide introduction,
strategies are used to avoid or why the concepts are important, cases of resistance appeared some
solve a pest problem, like combin- yet we keep fighting a growing 2 to 20 years after their introduc-
ing higher plant populations or number of resistant pests. In other tion in a number of key pest spe-
narrow rows with herbicide pro- words, “we” aren’t doing a good cies. Mother Nature has won ev-
grams to limit weed competition enough job. ery time.
for example. Oh man, that probably got Weed resistance- This has
Pests…disease, weeds, bugs, the blood boiling- hold on. “We” been beating us over the head
politicians… means scientists (industry, univer- for decades; we have weeds right
Management is the process of sity, wherever), industry reps and here in our fields resistant to a
making decisions in a systematic agronomists, consumers, farmers, lot of herbicides and they have
way to keep pests from reaching EPA lawyers, you name it… col- cost a lot of time and money. But
“intolerable levels”. lectively guilty of dropping the so far, we have risen to the chal-
What about ball on ensuring that IPM and lenge and found a way to pound
Resistance PRM are developed and carried weeds back into submission for a
Management? out effectively. Just to be clear, it time. The cycle is evolving, and
Pest resistance management isn’t that we all said the heck with the discovery of waterhemp re-
(PRM) is the effort to delay pests it and didn’t implement IPM and sistant to Group 15 herbicides in
from developing resistance. Pest PRM it on purpose. In many cases at least 2 Illinois counties is pret-
resistance will impact yields, in- there were mistakes, miscommu- ty crappy news. 15’s are some of
crease the cost of production, and nications or some other problem the most resilient and rock solid
limit farmers’ future options to somewhere up or down the infor- products we have, used heavily
manage pests. mation chain that led to pest resis- in both corn and beans. World-
There are other definitions out tance. We don’t need to, or have wide there are only a handful of
there for PRM, but one thing time to, play the blame game, we cases of grass weeds resistant to
most of them have in common just all have to step our game up the 15’s and only one in the US.
are concepts relating to “delaying” and do better from the cutting These waterhemp populations
or “limiting” resistance. Mother edge science all the way through are the first broadleaf weed in the
Nature has found ways to work to the consumer. world resistant to the Group 15’s.
around or flat out kick the tar out Mother Nature is hard to This might not come as a big sur-
of a lot of various control mea- Beat prise- the two documented G15
sures to date, so “stopping” resis- Let’s take a look at just a couple resistant waterhemp populations
tance… probably not possible in of types of pesticides- insecticides in Illinois- were resistant to other
the foreseeable future. and herbicides- for examples of herbicides as well, with some now
Why are These Concepts how quickly and creatively nature resistant to 6 sites of action.
Important? has adapted to some of our pesti- Group 4 herbicides have been
We all have a pretty good idea cides. pretty solid for us over the years,
what some various answers to this Insecticide resistance- It so 2,4-D and dicamba resistant
question are, and the definitions could be said our “chemical age” soybean systems are viewed as an
of IPM and PRM lay it out too. If kicked off with the introduction important tool in weed IPM by