We look at pest population dynamics and encourage careful monitoring before applying crop protection products
The weather can help protect crops says bill
Bill Crabtree is a farmer and consultant from Western Australia. He is a consultant specialising in no-tillage technologies.
He advises farmers to employ a range of crop protection tools depending on seasonal weather patterns. “I help farmers to monitor crops and manage for problems, we look at pest population dynamics and encourage careful monitoring before applying crop protection products. More times than not we do not have to use crop protection products as we have detected predator insects or we know that the season is changing and that the weather will highly likely intervene.”
“In the harshest conditions, like where I farm, perhaps only 10 percent of the crop in any one year requires protection as the dry and heat usually keeps pest levels down. With the exception of weeds which exist in all fields all over the world and they must be controlled. Fortunately for humans, herbicides are strong on plants and very gentle on animal and insect life, especially when calculated on grams of product used which is almost undetectable and is more benign that the coffee we drink each day,” he says.
“In wetter areas it is in everyone’s best interests to rotate crops to reduce our reliance on pesticides. I would argue that if greater restrictions are put on agriculture that the world will be subject to food shortages within a few short years. We must be realistic and thoughtful of the risks associated with denying access to modern farming methods. Such methods have given us affordable lifestyles that many people have come to not appreciate in recent years. A famine may not be too far away from any of us.”