The study showed that there is a low uptake of biological control, but stakeholders are optimistic, with requests for dynamic training in IPM (in languages other than English too) This capitalizes upon continuing work in other species related to some of the Asian vegetables and on the same species overseas. This work is occasionally funded by the Australian government and utilizes pest-genie and InfoPest to source softer chemicals (although it would be useful if the ‘softness’ could be indicated), and development of some systems for area-wide IPM management. Amongst reasons for this low uptake were cited lack of knowledge, lack of knowledge providers and lack of knowledge transfer.

There is a call to have some of the claims for non-chemical management products/practices, touted as being suitable for IPM, to be validated with good science, and to extend trials on biological control, especially of the ‘newer’ pests such as silver leaf whitefly.

The major source of chemical information (90%) is chemical companies and their representatives. The level of advice provided by these sources needs to be quality controlled, so that growers are given objective information on the relative benefits of the range of products available. In the main there is a close adherence to the APVMA chemical permits. The use of non-registered agrochemicals is generally in response to the constraint expressed as the non-availability of registered products, of economies in unit size for purchase, and quite possibly at times due to non-comprehension of the labels as written in English. There is also a concern with the lack of labeling that specifies use on specific groupings and on specific species. Standardized nomenclature (eg ‘vegetables’ truly means all vegetables, ‘cucurbits’ truly means all cucurbits) is essential, and should be made available at the APVMA www web site together with a full glossary of terms, and spelt out clearly on the label.

With few chemical products available to growers, there is concern with the possible build up of resistance, and this alone appears to growers to be an incentive to have more products registered. The option of accessing information from reliable sources overseas on the use, maximum residue limits (MRLs) and withholding periods for potential chemicals was voiced by a number of stakeholders.

Growers are also concerned with the poor advice they often receive from retail outlets and would like to see the Access to Asia web site include information on the use of agrochemicals.

Future pests were not a major concern of many growers, but some of the newer industries, eg taro, for which there is a narrow genetic crop base, are concerned. The incursion of pests from other locations with Australia (eg western flower thrips into Qld, nursery products and conveyance of soilborne diseases into the NT, white blister into Tasmania), and from overseas (eg taro leaf blight from the Pacific islands, flea beetle from Vietnam) are of concern. Some currently grown crops have no chemicals registered for use on them. These are the very new and small-scale industries, for which there is no effective lobby.

 Fast-tracking of applications to the APVMA for off-label registrations was one of the high priority actions requested by growers, as was a call to unify the state-wise control of use of agrochemicals.

IPM was highlighted as needing further research, and manpower for field scouting. There were calls to develop and use predictive models to answer site-specific questions to increase efficacy of chemical effectiveness, to improve upon the use of bio-control in short season and ‘baby’ crops (where bio-control has barely enough time to get established), because withholding periods of traditional chemicals are too long to allow for timely harvest.
 

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Last updated: August 2005
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http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/AFO/05-093sum.html