Barriers to IPM adoption for insect pests in New Zealand pastures

Abstract

<jats:p>New Zealand’s pastoral sector faces significant challenges to pest management as long-standing insecticides are deregistered. To protect their pastures, farmers need to shift from reactive responses that lead to poor economic outcomes to pre-emptive responses that are viable in the long term. Current management practices (insecticides, endophytes, biological control) for New Zealand’s pasture insect pests were assessed from the perspective of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Potential impacts from novel control strategies and emerging digital technologies were evaluated to determine how these could improve pest management. Cryptic IPM is present within the New Zealand pastoral sector: that is, farmers practise various elements of IPM but these elements are not integrated into a cohesive system, so farmers often fail to recognise pest impacts until significant economic losses have occurred. We identified important networks by which farmers, industry and researchers communicate and share information, and can develop strategies to raise awareness of IPM. To encourage adoption, farmers need to feel ownership of pasture IPM. Investment in IPM training for farmers through industry extension networks is essential to prepare farmers for the shift away from chemical insecticides to new biologically based control methods. Adoption of IPM will help pastoralists respond to current and new pest challenges.</jats:p>

Climate change impacts on pest ecology and risks to pasture resilience

“…The most important need is for an integrated approach to predicting, preparing for, and responding to climate change in agriculture involving a wide range of expertise, including farm systems, plant and animal breeding, entomology and biosecurity, agronomy and weed science. A first step towards this integrated approach would be to increase adoption of IPM for pasture pests, as suggested by Mansfield et al (2019). Mason et al (2017) considered that increased plant community diversity, particularly including drought-tolerant species, could help enhance certainty of pasture production under climate change.…”

“…Black beetle is already the second most economically damaging pasture pest in New Zealand (Ferguson et al 2019), with only limited control options (Mansfield et al 2019). It is vital that black beetle is investigated alongside any development of subtropical grasses as future forages in northern New Zealand because these are favoured host plants.…”

Application of circular economy principles to New Zealand pastoral farming systems

“…Soil-borne nematodes attacking white clover may reduce total pasture yield by 15% (Watson & Mercer 2000) and increase the need for N fertiliser and pasture renewal. Such incursions can also require use of additional agrichemicals, with approximately 79 tonnes (t) of active ingredients from pesticides applied to New Zealand pastures in 2004 (Mansfield et al 2019). Although conserved pasture reduces pasture waste and provides supplementary feed with a relatively low carbon footprint (see below), silage requires 1.3 kg plastic per round bale, or 40 g plastic per m 2 of pit silage (Pers.…”

“…In order to reduce the use of pesticides, integrated pest management strategies have been proposed, with training and education required to aid adoption (Mansfield et al 2019). It is acknowledged that this method will not completely control pests and the overall impact on circularity would require assessment of economic, environmental and social outcomes.…”

Drought impacts African black beetle feeding on perennial ryegrass

“…There are few control options for ABB (Karpyn Esqueda et al 2017;Mansfield et al 2019), one being the use of asexual fungal Epichloë endophytes. These mutualistic, seed-transmitted fungi have become an essential component of pasture persistence by mitigating the effects of biotic and abiotic challenges (Caradus 2023).…”