Teacher and student resource for integrated pest management in protected crops in New Zealand

Abstract

With my industry experience in the last 3 years I have found there is a large void of information available to both Teachers and Students when it comes to the topic of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) within the New Zealand Horticulture Sector. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an effective, environmentally-sensitive and economically sound approach to the management of pest organisms. IPM programmes have been developed for many horticultural and agricultural crops, and excellent programmes have been developed for greenhouse crops. With my experience I have found either Teachers have no resources supplied to them or they are delivering out of date information in this area of study. I find this is not acceptable in this day of age because this is such a vital part of production horticulture which will have a great impact in years to come. This is because of Consumer awareness - consumers not wanting deadly chemicals sprayed onto their food crops, and the fact that many chemical combinations just are not effective at controlling the pests and diseases like when they were first on the market - and this is only going to get worse in the short term! With this project I aim to create a well rounded resource able to be used in a classroom teaching environment to help Horticulture/Agriculture students understand the principles and uses of IPM. I aim to supply a useful and informative teaching tool to them so these principles are able to be understood to how vital IPM is for future of New Zealand Horticulture Hothouse food production.