Integrated Pest Management in Vegetable Crops: Principles, Strategies, and Sustainable Applications
Abstract
Vegetable crops are highly susceptible to insect pests, leading to substantial yield losses and quality deterioration. Excessive dependence on synthetic pesticides has resulted in ecological imbalance, pest resistance, and health concerns. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) provides an ecologically sustainable alternative by combining preventive, biological, mechanical, botanical, and selective chemical strategies. The present study evaluates the principles and applications of IPM in major vegetable crops and compares its performance with conventional pest control methods. Yield data indicate an average increase of approximately 25% under IPM practices. Statistical analysis confirmed significant differences at p ≤ 0.05. The findings suggest that IPM enhances productivity while ensuring environmental safety and long-term sustainability.
Keywords: Integrated Pest Management, Vegetable Crops, Biological Control, Sustainable Agriculture, Economic Threshold Level
Downloads
References
1. Dhaliwal, G. S., & Arora, R. (2001). Integrated pest management: Concepts and approaches. Kalyani Publishers.
2. Ehler, L. E. (2006). Integrated pest management (IPM): Definition, historical development and implementation, and the other IPM. Pest Management Science, 62(9), 787–789. https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.1247
3. Food and Agriculture Organization. (2011). Guide to integrated pest management. FAO Plant Production and Protection Paper, 202, 1–45.
4. Kogan, M. (1998). Integrated pest management: Historical perspectives and contemporary developments. Annual Review of Entomology, 43, 243–270. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ento.43.1.243
5. Pedigo, L. P., & Rice, M. E. (2009). Entomology and pest management (6th ed.). Pearson Education.
6. Pretty, J., & Bharucha, Z. P. (2015). Integrated pest management for sustainable intensification of agriculture in Asia and Africa. Insects, 6(1), 152–182. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects6010152
7. Radcliffe, E. B., Hutchison, W. D., & Cancelado, R. E. (2009). Integrated pest management: Concepts, tactics, strategies, and case studies. Cambridge University Press.
8. Sharma, H. C. (2015). Climate change effects on insects: Implications for crop protection and food security. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences, 85(1), 1–10.
9. Van Lenteren, J. C. (2012). The state of commercial augmentative biological control: Plenty of natural enemies, but a frustrating lack of uptake. BioControl, 57(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-011-9395-1
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Author
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/
