Understanding pesticide resistance is important to keep it from happening with your integrated pest management (IPM) system.
How Pesticide Resistance Happens
Any pest can develop a resistance to a pesticide and Cooperative Extension Entomology Farm Advisor David Haviland talked about how resistance develops at both the Almond Conference and last week’s UC Cooperative Extension’s IPM meeting focused on chlorpyrifos.
Haviland showed growers how resistance happens and why some practices may be contributing to that occurrence. If an application doesn’t kill the entire population, that can aid resistance development. He says understanding how resistance develops is necessary to creating a good strategy for IPM management. Instead of looking at how well one treatment works, he says putting more importance on your entire IPM’s efficiency is the way to look at it.
For more information about IPM systems you can go to the UC IPM website.