Net House Vegetable Production: Pest Management Successes and Challenges

Alabama is a significant producer of vegetables in the United States of America with over 50 different kinds grown under various environmental conditions. Tomato and bell pepper are some of the major vegetables produced by the state because of a high consumer demand for fresh produce giving good returns to the producers. However, the consistent consumer demand for unblemished produce also creates pressure on producers to use insecticides on a routine basis; such practices cause high environmental risk and unwanted human exposure to pesticides. Recent phase-out of several popular insecticides by the Environmental Protection Agency will create more pest management challenges for growers. The unusually high insect pest populations and activity levels seen in central and south Alabama (Majumdar, 2010) is a barrier to the vegetable production industry. Although many biological control methods are available, evaluation of the effectiveness of the insect exclusion techniques for sustainable vegetable production has been given limited attention in the U.S., except perhaps for the use of row covers. The physical exclusion of insect pests basically involves the separation of pest from host plants through some mechanical means. Some common examples of physical exclusion ‘principle’ in crop production include the use of row covers in squash to exclude vine borers, installing collars in soil around houseplants for stopping cutworms, bagging fruits in orchards to exclude fruit flies and many others. This article focuses on the effectiveness of large fixed-wall net house for insect pest management based on observations from a preliminary study of this new production system. This is the first intensive study of net house vegetable production system on large scale and trends reported herein need to be corroborated with further research. ENTOMOLOGY SERIES