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Advancement in the use of insect netting as an alternative to chemical crop protection in vegetable production (OPTINET)
Project
Project code: 2815NA199
Contract period: 01.03.2019
- 28.02.2022
Budget: 138,410 Euro
Purpose of research: Applied research
Keywords: crop protection, plant health, vegetable production, crop production, animal pathogens, biological plant protection
Aim of the project is to provide strategies for an effective, quality-assuring and economically viable use of crop cover netting against vegetable insect pests and thereby to increase the stability of conventional and organic open-field vegetable production systems. The results are intended to contribute to the goals of the German National Action Plan on Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (NAP), including the substitution of plant protection products by non-chemical alternatives. Meeting the required quality standards for vegetable produces under conditions of increasingly strict regulations for the use of plant protection products is challenging. Already now, the chemical possibilities to control vegetable insect pests like cabbage white fly, pollen beetle and turnip fly are unsatisfactory. Furthermore, during recent years there has been an increasing occurrence of these as well as of other brassica pests, which is associated with the high rapeseed production area, particularly in Northern Germany. To some extent, the use of crop cover netting is already current practice in conventional as well as in organic vegetable production despite high expenses. The extended use of cover netting is presently restricted by i.a. quality problems caused by plant developmental effects of the net cover and the occurrence of insect pests, which cannot be successfully controlled by common net mesh sizes. Thus, the project objectives are: • Extension of the use of cover netting to other, netting-sensitive vegetable crops • Adaptation of weed control and fertilization strategies to long cover periods • Evaluation of the impact of netting materials with small mesh size on yield and quality formation • Evaluation of available pest monitoring and forecasting systems as decision tool for cover netting management
Section overview
Subjects
- Crop Protection
- Vegetable Gardening
- Organic Farming
Framework programme
Federal Organic Farming Scheme and other forms of sustainable agriculture (BÖLN)
Funding programme
Excutive institution
Institute for Plant Protection in Horticulture and Forests (JKI-GF)
