Crop Protection

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.

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

The major commodity crops in the UK are wheat, barley, oilseed rape, field beans, sugar beet and potatoes, but around half of agricultural land grows grass.   

Commonly known as Septoria or Septoria leaf blotch, this is the most damaging foliar disease in the UK for Winter Wheat. With a carefully constructed fungicide programme and use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), disease pressure can be managed and losses greatly reduced.  

The Potato Cyst Nematode damages the roots causing poor growth, wilting during periods of water stress and early senescence.

A range of products are commercially available that claim to enable more efficient nutrient uptake, allowing less nutrient to be applied as fertiliser.

Cereal diseases affecting wheat, barley, oats, rye, triticale and maize can be caused by a variety of factors, including fungal, bacterial or viral infections, pests and insects, and environmental stress.

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Insecticides are a type of agrochemical used to kill, harm or deter insects that either directly infect cultivated plants/animals or that are carriers of disease. In agricultural settings, insecticides may be used in both arable and livestock husbandry situations. The classification of insecticides can occur in various ways: via their biochemical mode of action, their mode of penetration or on the basis of their chemistry. They can also come in various formulations and delivery-systems such as sprays, gels or baits.

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

This section is focused on the predators and parasitoids of key crop pests.

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.

This area is for identification of pest and beneficial insects and invertebrates.

This page is for the resources available for monitoring pest activity.

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.  

Phoma leaf spot and stem canker is one of the most damaging diseases in oilseed rape, caused by two closely related fungal pathogens: Leptosphaeria maculans (Plenodomus lingam) and L. biglobosa (P. biglobosus).

Take-all is a root disease caused by the soil dwelling ascomycete fungus Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici. The fungus is capable of infecting cereal crops such a wheat, barley, triticale and rye however, oats are immune. Take-all can also affect several common grasses such as couch grass and bromes. Another variety of take-all fungus (graminis var. avenae) can infect oats and other cereals, but this is currently very rare in the UK.