Many insects show a greater attraction to multimodal cues, e.g. odour and colour combined, than to either cue alone. Despite the potential to apply the knowledge to improve control strategies, studies of multiple stimuli have not been undertaken for stored product pest insects. We tested orientation towards a food odour (crushed white maize) in combination with a colour cue (coloured paper with...

The study was conducted among the two farmer groups in Bhaktapur and Kavre districts of Nepal. The main objective of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of IPM FFS on creating awareness and disseminating the knowledge on sustainable pest management to the farmers and to assess the relationships between enhanced IPM knowledge and adoption of IPM strategies by the farmers. The study has be...

Many factors including pest natural enemy ratios, starting densities, timings of natural enemy releases, dosages and timings of insecticide applications and instantaneous killing rates of pesticides on both pests and natural enemies can affect the success of IPM control programmes. To address how such factors influence successful pest control, hybrid impulsive pest-natural enemy models with dif...

Neonicotinoid insecticides are widely used for control of insect pests around the world and are especially pervasive in agricultural pest management. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that the broad-scale and prophylactic uses of neonicotinoids pose serious risks of harm to beneficial organisms and their ecological function. This provides the impetus for exploring alternatives to n...

Biological pest control is increasingly used in agriculture as a an alternative to traditional chemical pest control. In many cases, this involves a one-off or periodic release of naturally occurring and/or genetically modified enemies such as predators, parasitoids, or pathogens. As the interaction between these enemies and the pest is complex and the production of enemies potentially expensiv...

Integrated pest management (IPM) is a method of reducing economic, human health, and environmental risks from pests and pest management strategies. There are questions about the long-term success of IPM programs in relation to continued use of pesticides in agriculture. Total pounds of pesticides applied is a mis-measure of the impact of IPM in agriculture. A more complete measurement of the lo...

Due to the high demand for pest control in Sri Lankas’ rice paddy cultivation practices, the number of new pesticides has been recently introduced. However, the new pesticides, which are flowing into the agriculture sector of Sri Lanka, appeared to be used by farmers without obtaining proper application guidance from the suppliers or from extension services. As a result, the exposure to harmful...