Is the need based chemical PP making any big headway?

Question

Taking chemical sprays based on ETL was advocated by scientists to reduce risk of pest resistance. resurgence and residual toxicity.. But is it making big headway or given up due to ineffective ETL parameters, difficulty in making ETL counts or due availability (trade claims) of alternate methods... etc?

Answer 1

The use of estimated threshold levels as a que to apply pesticides is still being adapted.  Personally, I think this technique requires a lot of working knowledge about pests, pesticides, agricultural production, crop nutrition and a multitude of other factors.  This alone limits the adaptation and, consequently, is used successfully by precious few producers.

Answer 2

I was told by an agrl staff that even in Tamilnadu where alternate pest control measures (avoiding toxic chemical sprays) are adopted in a big way, the need based chemical control (for acute and massive pest outbreaks) based on Economic Threshold Levels (ETL standards) are not very prevalent and great measure of arbitrary applications are done..

It is just not due to ignorance or illiteracy (now rural literacy is much more in the States) but due to the difficulty in making decision based on the counts in just their field while whole lot of adjoining fields may show different counts (less ET Levels) and farmers feel shy to spend on spray... etc.

Only the dept staff are said to take counts in test plots in their areas for making pest forecasts for the area as a whole in this state.. may be different in other states / countries..