Pests and disease infestations have been recognized as one of the most challenging difficulties facing Iraqi agriculture and then affecting food security. The impact of this problem is entirely evident in plant protection resulting in the heavy usage of pesticides (Al-Hakeem, 2016). The extensive use of chemical pesticides for a long period has caused many side effects such as extreme health hazards for the human and the environment, the development of resistances toward various pesticides, adverse effects on beneficial insects (natural enemies, pollinators and honey bees) and other non-targeted organisms, resurgence of secondary pests to the economic damage levels (Theiling and Croft, 1988; Lashkari et al., 2007). The best solution …show more content…
The cornerstone of IPM is the monitoring/ predication program including sampling plans to assess pest’s population that help to develop an effective decision making model using the economic threshold to determine the suitable time of control application. Insect populations may differ greatly among fields and growing seasons, so scouting/sampling fields is the only accurate way to estimate a pest population and determine whether or not its infestation is likely to reduce crop yield/quality, to detect presence of natural enemies, to apply the right control and to avoid unnecessary treatments (Binns and Nyrop, 1992). Entomologists/producers usually sample pest populations with the conventional approach in which sample sizes are fixed in advance. Instead of making scouting at one time in the conventional sampling plan, sampler can check the accumulated data whether or not a conclusion can be reached after each observation in sequential sampling which is a statistical procedure whose sample size is not fixed in advance. Sequential sampling can save time and costs by reducing the number of observations needed reaching 50% of the number of observations required with classical sampling (Wald, 1943; …show more content…
I think the success of IPM depends not only on using good technologies that used in the previous projects, but also IPM strategy should include scouting and monitoring plans, and pesticides must applied only after sampling program that indicate they are needed to eliminate target pest problems.
The significance of this project lies in decision-making protocols that used to determine when to intervene (Binns and Nyrop, 1992). Minimizing pesticide use will be more economical and environment friendly, and higher quality products will be available to the consumers in the market. People became more conscious about health issues associated with toxic chemicals applied for food production, thus consumers may pay higher prices for the organic food (Ferrer,