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Develop Integrated Pest Management for Sustainable Viticulture

Vineyard pest management often relies on scheduled chemical applications rather than need-based treatments, leading to unnecessary pesticide use, environmental damage, and resistance development. The challenge is creating integrated pest management systems that minimize chemical inputs while maintaining effective pest control through biological, cultural, and targeted chemical methods. This requires understanding pest ecology, developing monitoring systems for early detection, and creating decision algorithms for intervention timing. Current IPM adoption is limited by complexity, monitoring requirements, and risk aversion among producers facing potential crop losses. Technical barriers include predicting pest outbreaks, coordinating multiple control methods, and ensuring economic viability of reduced-input systems. Success would reduce pesticide use and environmental impact, lower production costs through precision application, improve vineyard biodiversity, reduce pest resistance development, and demonstrate sustainable intensification approaches applicable to other perennial crop systems facing similar pest pressure and environmental concerns.

Applied Sciences, Specialized Agriculture, Viticulture & Enology