Insecticides

Integrated Pest Management highlights the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro-ecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms. IPM is one of the tools for low-pesticide-input pest management, and IPM must now be implemented by all professional agchem users.

Pollen beetles (Meligethes aeneus) are prevalent during Spring and Summer months and are a significant pest of European oilseed rape.  

Derived from natural materials such as animals, plants, bacteria and certain minerals. Designed to affect only one target pest and often decompose quickly. 

Crop protection refers to practices and measures employed in agriculture to safeguard crops from both biotic (pests, diseases and weeds) and abiotic (environmental factors) stresses. They key goal of crop production is to maintain crop productivity, health and quality whilst minimising yield losses.

Orange wheat blossom midge can seriously damage yield and quality of susceptible wheat varieties but it depends on whether the egg-laying adult females emerge at the time when the wheat is at the at risk growth stage. Adults are small (1.5-2.5 mm long) and are a very distinctive bright orange colour.

The application of agrochemicals by modern crop sprayers involves sophisticated technologies applied by skilled operators.

Fungicides are a type of agrochemical used specifically to kill fungal pathogens or inhibit the growth of fungi and the spores that they produce. They full under the umbrella of plant protection products (PPPs), also referred to as pesticides, along with other agrochemicals such as herbicides and insecticides that target weeds and insect pests respectively.  Prior to the development of fungicides, there are many historic cases of pathogenic fungi devastating crop yields - one of the most famous being the Irish Potato famine of 1845-52. This was caused by the potato late blight fungal pathogen Phytophthora infestans which today still causes massive losses to agriculture globally, although management by fungicides is now an important component of control.  A wide variety of fungicides exist with various modes of action (MOAs) to effectively control many fungal diseases including mildews, rusts, blights and leaf spots. A threat to modern agriculture is the development and spread of resistance to such fungicides amongst fungal populations.

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Agrochemicals are chemical products used for agricultural purposes. Although agrochemicals have high input costs, they are widely used in the farming industry for their beneficial effects on crop yields and quality and associated reduced labour costs. Together with advances in agricultural machinery and infrastructure, the use of agrochemicals played a large role in the Green Revolution. This was a period in the 21st century in which the spread of various agricultural technologies led to greatly increased yields and production globally. However, a number of concerns around agrochemicals exist including negative effects on human health and the environment and the development of pest populations that are becoming resistant to them. A major challenge of modern agriculture is to try and reduce reliance on agrochemicals whilst continuing to increase yields and feed a growing global population.

Herbicides are substances (usually chemical) used to control weeds in a variety of situations including agriculture, horticulture and managed landscapes. Herbicides are classified according to their mode of action (MOA) - this is the precise biochemical mechanism in which the herbicide targets and kills the weed. The 'active ingredient' of the herbicide is the specific herbicidal compound that has the phytotoxic effect and this is formulated with a variety of other ingredients (including other active substances, surfactants, buffers, adjuvants e.t.c) to make a final product which is given a trade name by the herbicide manufacturer. With any herbicide product you will find an associated product label which explains how to use the product safely and legally. This page provides an overview of herbicides including how they are classified and used. Please link any pages or projects relating to herbicide use to this topic page.  Some widely used herbicides (e.g glyphosate) also have their own topic page. Other related topics on FarmPEP include herbicide resistance,  bioherbicides, broad leaved weeds and grass weeds.