Certis Europe, biorationals specialists, have established partnerships with major fresh produce growers in Spain in their project ‘Growing for the Future’. They have worked together to develop Integrated Pest Management programmes combining conventional and biorational products that make an important contribution to resistance management, while minimizing residues of pesticides on the produce.
Certis leads the offer of biorational products for fruit and vegetables in Spain. These are defined as “registered plant protection products generally derived from the natural environment, offering improved benefits for plants, people and the planet, which are increasingly important factors for Integrated Crop Production to satisfy requirements of the value chain and consumers”.
Farmers and technicians like to use biorationals because they have a very positive residue profile: the active ingredients do not create a residue as they are naturally occurring substances (e.g. maltodextrin in Eradicoat®); or they can be degraded quickly and easily (e.g. natural pyrethrins in Breaker®); or the active is not actually applied to the produce (e.g. pheromones for mating disruption in Cidetrak®).
Another important reason for the use of biorationals is that, generally speaking, they are compatible with the use of beneficial arthropods as a complementary tool to manage pests (e.g. Bacillus thuringiensis used for Turex® targets only lepidopteran pests and has no impact on pollinators, predators and parasitoids of the most important pests). In addition biorationals pose a lower risk to workers applying the products, bystanders and consumers of the produce. In fact they have a significantly better environmental profile overall.
But, something that is not always taken into consideration is the contribution of biorationals to resistance management.
Due to the stringency of the registration process, there are today fewer and fewer available active substances and modes of action for insecticides, acaricides, nematicides, fungicides and bactericides. Most new active substances that are developed act on a single point of a metabolic process: they tend to be very selective and in many cases unique to the pest to be controlled. This is good as they are quite specific (and therefore avoid collateral damage to other species) but it also means that the pests can easily develop resistance to the active. The reduction of available products and the potential for the development of resistance to new actives represents another serious challenge to growers.
Nor is it possible for resistance to develop to pheromones. The pheromone used for mating disruption is a chemical synthetized substance identical to the substance that females of the insect release to attract males for mating and reproduction. By creating an atmosphere saturated with this substance, males cannot detect where the females are. If the population were to create a mechanism of resistance that mechanism would effectively reduce the mating process and the population would not survive: no reproduction = no survival.
In these programmes the use of Certis’ Biorationals is critical to grow produce in many cases without detectable residues or with less than three active substances detected, but always under 30% of the EU-Maximum Residue Limit, as is demanded by the European Food Retailers. During the discussions about the production protocol to be used in the crop, one of the crucial factors is also how to avoid resistance to the essential active substances used and this is where the Certis contribution is so important. For example:
- It is a common practice to use fungicides by drip irrigation in green houses for vegetables, especially for the control of
powdery mildew. The risk of promoting resistance is very high due to the long period of time with sub-lethal dose in
the plant. In this regard Certis promotes products like Armicarb® (Potassium H carbonate). - The use of Botanigard® (Beauveria bassiana) disrupting the cycle of pests such as white flies, aphids and thrips
minimizes the risk of resistance to conventional products. - The use of Eradicoat® (Maltodextrin) to control resistant rust mite and white flies in vegetables thanks to its physical
mode of action.
Growing for the Future is proving to be extremely effective in supporting the growers’ production to provide buyers with the high quality, healthy, zero or low residue produce that their customers want, produced safely in terms of the environment and the workers involved. This initiative is adding value to the fruit and vegetable producers and is proving that a profitable and sustainable model of agriculture is possible even in intensive crops.