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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Maricopa, Arizona » U.S. Arid Land Agricultural Research Center » Pest Management and Biocontrol Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #257459
Title: Forward. In focus: 50 years of the integrated control concept in arthropod IPM

Author
item Castle, Steven
item BENTLEY, W - University Of California

Submitted to: Pest Management Science
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/15/2009
Publication Date: 11/3/2009
Citation: Castle, S.J., Bentley, W. 2009. Forward. In focus: 50 years of the integrated control concept in arthropod IPM. Pest Management Science. 65: 1265-1266.

Interpretive Summary: The 50th anniversary of the publication ‘The Integrated Control Concept’ by V.M. Stern and colleagues was observed in 2009 with a special In Focus section comprised of a series of articles in the journal Pest Management Science. The 1959 publication by Stern et al. established the economic theory that serves as the foundation of IPM as it is practiced today. It represented a skillful solution for the problems and uncertainties associated with initiating chemical control action against a pest population. In addition, the Integrated Control Concept stressed the importance of integrating biological control with chemical control by incorporating sampling programs and selective insecticide use to achieve information-driven pest management. Commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the paper by Stern et al. was most appropriate given the perennial importance of maintaining effective pest control in a sustainable agriculture.

Technical Abstract: The year 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of the appearance of ‘The Integrated Control Concept’ in the journal Hilgardia. With this publication, the four authors from Riverside and Berkeley campuses of the University of California elaborated a new paradigm of pest control that serves as the foundationof arthropod IPM today. Their remarkable insight into the fundamental importance of ‘environmental resistance’ in regulating pest populations around a general equilibrium position was at the heart of the integrated control concept. They provided examples, such as the Colorado potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decimlineata), of how changed environments alter pest status for some arthropod species, but particularly focused on management practices such as chemical treatments that potentially alter population equilibrium by impairing biological control, a key component of environmental resistance. Although there was already awareness in the 1950s of emerging problems associated with increasing reliance on pesticides, it was Stern et al. who developed the theoretical basis and put forth the necessary approaches in the field to enable the integration of biological and chemical control. Implicit in the integrated control concept was a cognizance of the devastating impact on non-target organisms by pesticides that Rachel Carson would write about in broader context three years later in Silent Spring. It is to their immeasurable credit that Stern et al. not only reported on the problem before it was popularized, but advanced a new pest control standard that provided a mechanism by which to address pesticide excesses.