Integrated Pest Management has become an essential part of plant protection in horticulture all over the world. The combination of beneficial organisms, selective pesticides, monitoring and other cultural management measurements makes it possible to reduce the number of chemical treatments while tolerating acceptable pest levels. The success behind this strategy is hardly based on environmental concerns, but is mainly driven by economic and practical reasons like resistance management or the use of pollinators like bumblebees or honeybees.
Recently, the extralegal requirements by some European supermarkets on the number and the amount of residues on fruit and vegetables, and the strict import rules on the used plant protection products by countries like Russia have strongly augmented the demand for IPM based pest and disease control in many horticultural crops. However, for growers, advisory people, registration officers and even chemical companies employees, things are getting more and more complicated. They do not only need to know which product they can use to control a pest or disease, but also if there are any undesirable side-effects on the used micro- and macro-organisms, and if so, how they can still implement the treatment while minimising the effects of the treatment on the biological balance between predator and prey, or parasitoid and host. This is where this website comes in to help.
IPM Impact is proud to present the most comprehensive database on side-effects of plant protection compounds and growth regulators on beneficial organisms and pollinators in the world. It contains more than 13000 data on different beneficial arthropods, zoophagous nematodes, microbials or pollinators from more than 400 active ingredients.