This book covers the statistical concepts of sampling in agricultural pest management. These can be summarised as how to obtain sample data from the field and how to use the data in decision-making. Options may include introducing natural enemies, spraying with pesticide, or adopting a wait-and-see approach. Some prior knowledge of pests and how they interact with crops is required of the reader, but only minimal mathematical background is assumed. Worked examples using the mathematical software program Mathcad are also included.

Ecofriendly Pest Management for Food Security explores the broad range of opportunity and challenges afforded by Integrated Pest Management systems. The book focuses on the insect resistance that has developed as a result of pest control chemicals, and how new methods of environmentally complementary pest control can be used to suppress harmful organisms while protecting the soil, plants, and air around them. As the world's population continues its rapid increase, this book addresses the production of cereals, vegetables, fruits, and other foods and their subsequent demand increase. Traditional means of food crop production face proven limitations and increasing research is turning to alternative means of crop growth and protection. - Addresses environmentally focused pest control with specific attention to its role in food security and sustainability. - Includes a range of pest management methods, from natural enemies to biomolecules. - Written by experts with extensive real-world experience.

Basic concepts of decision-making in pest management; Basic concepts of sampling for pest management; Classifying pest density; Distributions; Sequential sampling for classification; Enhancing and evaluating the usefulness of sampling plans; Binomial counts; Multiple sources of variation; Resampling to evaluate the properties of sampling plans; Sampling over time to classify or estimate a population growth curve; Monitoring pest populations through time.

Advisory work, by its very nature, is an intermediary between the re search worker and those who apply the results of his research. The challenge of advisory work is to devise means of and find pathways for transmitting research results to the user, overcome the reluctance of the latter to change, and often combine novel ideas with well-estab lished traditions. Nowhere is this challenge greater than in farming. This is especially true in developing countries, where the gap in the educational level between research workers and farmers may be ex tremely wide. Moreover, village-level advisers are often overburdened with non-professional functions and are not sufficiently backed up by well-trained professional advisers. Thus, in many of these countries there is a serious discrepancy between the knowledge available and that needed and actually applied on the farm. Advisory work in crop protection is no exception, but profits to some extent from two facts: (1) because of the potentially catastrophic nature of pest attack, governments often operate a supervisory crop protection service, the staff of which may be able to dispense some pest control advice; and (2) the staff of pesticide distributors tends to fill, at least in part, the need for advice on how to fight pests and dis eases with chemicals.

The book is aimed primarily at graduate or final-year undergraduate students of pest management. It will also, however, be a very useful reference tool for consultants, extension workers and researchers in crop protection."--BOOK JACKET.

This is a revised edition of an undergraduate textbook, which incorporates advances in insect pest management, and has been updated throughout to provide a more balanced, comprehensive coverage of the subject. Topics include a history of insect pest management, and a discussion of insecticides.