The Role of Monitoring and Signaling in Integrated Crop Protection

Integrated plant protection is a way of protecting plants from harmful organisms by using all available methods of plant protection, especially non-chemical methods, in a way that minimizes the risk to human health, animal health and the environment. Integrated pest management makes full use of knowledge of organisms that are harmful to plants (in particular, their biology and harmfulness) in order to determine the optimal timing for taking action against these organisms. It also takes advantage of the natural occurrence of beneficial organisms, including predators and parasites of organisms harmful to plants, and uses their introduction. Thus, integrated pest management reduces the use of chemical plant protection products to the minimum necessary and thus reduces pressure on the environment and protects the biodiversity of the agricultural environment.