Pheromones as Component of Integrated Pest Management

During the seventies and the eighties, environmental and social side effects of synthetic pesticides led to the development of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programs. The concept of manipulating pest behavior for insect control has been known for centuries through the practice of trap cropping. Food lures and baits treated with a poison have also been used for more than a century to control household pests. Currently, pheromones and other semiochemicals are being used to monitor and control insect pests in large farms. The advantages of using pheromones for monitoring insect pests include lower costs, specificity, ease of use, and high sensitivity. Different pheromones, and Host marking pheromones. Sex pheromone is the most successful insect pest management strategy among these all especially on insect pests of pome, grape, cotton and tomato. Such pest management methods are sustainable and environmentally safe to the broad-spectrum insecticides, either as monitoring or management tools of critical IPM programs.