BIRCHIP Cropping Group’s integrated pest management project members recently met at BCG to work through their strategies with leading Australian entomologists Paul Horne and Jessica Page and agricultural sciences company FMC, which is supporting the project.
Each farmer in the project has chosen a paddock to use IPM strategies to control insects for the next three years to see whether, and how, IPM can be used in broadacre cropping systems to improve profitability and decrease reliance on pesticides.
Participating farmers and their agronomists discussed the pest issues they have been finding in paddocks and how best to manage these using IPM.