Project Overview

Reports

Commodities

• Ecosystem: Ecosystem

• Vegetables: brassicas, cucurbits, peppers, tomatoes

Target Pests

• Target Pests: aphids, flea beetles, insects, lepidoptera, spider mites

Practices

• Pest Management: biological control, mechanical control, monitoring/scouting

• Crop Production: high tunnels or hoop houses

• Production Systems: agroecosystems

Specialty crops are produced increasingly in high-tunnels, making non-chemical approaches more important than ever. High-tunnel production has been widely accepted by growers because it can extend the growing season, increase production and protect crops from cold temperature and extreme weather events. In addition, high tunnels help growers to retain their customer base because they have produce to sell more consistently throughout the year (Arnold and Arnold, 2003).

Mechanical, cultural and biological controls are non-chemical tactics to reduce pests in food production. Mechanical control, which is the use of physical means to manage pests, is commonly used by organic growers and in IPM programs. For example, floating row covers are a mechanical control that uses material to cover vegetable crops to exclude insect pests in field conditions. In high tunnel production, growers open the side walls and end walls of high tunnels to reduce their temperatures during summer and sunny days in spring and fall. Recent studies have shown that insect exclusion screens (mechanical control) have the potential to reduce insect pest populations like cucumber beetles and spotted wing drosophila in high tunnels. However, this approach has been poorly studied and more research is needed to fully understand the effect of insect exclusion screens on other insect pests and their natural enemies. 

We propose to study the effect of insect exclusion screens on insect pests and their biocontrol agents on vegetable crops in high tunnels. Our study will be conducted on four commercial farms and will use ten high tunnels (five with insect exclusion screens and five without screens). We will estimate the pests and their natural enemy abundance during the whole growing season. Results will increase knowledge of non-chemical control that can be used by both organic growers and growers that use IPM programs to reduce the dependence of pesticides.

General objective: To build knowledge on the impact of insect exclusion screens on IPM programs in commercial high tunnel production.

Specific Objectives:

Objective 1. Determine the effect of insect exclusion screens on insect pests of vegetables in high tunnels.

Objective 2. Assess the influence of insect exclusion screens on the endemic population of natural enemies (parasitoids and predators) in high tunnels.

Objective 3. Conduct an economic analysis on the implementation of insect exclusion screen.