Disease-fighting microbes, insect-eating predators and mating-disrupting pheromones are among the tools listed in a new review of methods that can be used to reduce synthetic pesticide use on grapevines in Europe. Using these alternative methods can reduce the environmental and health risks associated with chemical pesticides, but further development is required to make them attractive to growers.
Highlights
- Several pests and diseases affect the grapevine.
- Integrated pest management is mandatory to reduce pesticide risk.
- A review on the state of the art and the perspectives on pest protection tools and strategies.
Abstract
Several pests and diseases have grapevine as their favourite host and the vineyard as preferred environment, so an intensive pesticide schedule is usually required to meet qualitative and quantitative production standards. The need to prevent the negative impact of synthetic chemical pesticides on human health and the environment and the consumer expectations in term of chemical residues in food stimulated the research of innovative tools and methods for sustainable pest management. The research project PURE was a Europe-wide framework, which demonstrated that several solutions are now available for the growers and evaluated several new alternatives that are under development or almost ready for being applied in practice. Although the use of resistant/tolerant varieties is not yet feasible in several traditional grape growing areas, at least part of the synthetic chemical pesticides can be substituted with biocontrol agents to control pests and pathogens and/or pheromone mating disruption, or the number of treatments can be reduced by the use of decision support systems, which identify the optimal timing for the applications. This review presents the state of the art and the perspectives in the field of grapevine protection tools and strategies.
More Information
- A critical review of plant protection tools for reducing pesticide use on grapevine and new perspectives for the implementation of IPM in viticulture, sciencedirect, Volume 97, July 2017, Pages 70-84.
- Reducing synthetic pesticide use on grapevines — a review of methods, Science for Environment Policy, 07 March 2018 Issue 504.