The National Research and Development Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Estidamah) organized an open day on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Biological Control in its office located in the Riyadh Techno Valley, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Since pest management and disease control are among the most greenhouse crop practice due to their great impact on the environment and human health, Estidamah organized this open day to help Saudi growers to adopt appropriate Integrated Pest Management and biological programs “IPM” to decrease applications of chemical pesticides and improve fruit quality.
Estidamah’s IPM program incorporates a wide range of practices, including crop rotation, cultural control measures, biosocial control and other alternative techniques to provide the local market with healthy vegetables, with zero or minimum pesticide applications. To achieve this strategy, Estidamah updated participants on the latest different techniques, including natural control, biological control and biotechnical control.
Also, Estidamah is working on introducing new natural enemies that target specific pests, mainly Tuta absoluta, that have been carefully selected and screened to eliminate species that could pose a threat to other useful organisms.
The open day attracted a considerable number of participants who showed great interaction with the topics discussed and the findings presented. Also, the audience made field tours across Estidamah’s greenhouses, as well as practical training on the new technologies of integrated pest management and biological control.
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