One of the fundamental elements of the pest control system known as Integrated Control or Integrated Protection is having a set of decision-making rules that guide the selection of control measures, on the basis of assessment of the risk to the crop presented by the pests and diseases.

The aim with pests is to maintain their populations below economic injury levels.This means having access to sampling techniques and treatment thresholds for the populations of the main pest of the crop, as of their natural enemies.Sampling methods must fulfil apparently contradictory conditioning factors.In the first place, they must be sufficiently simple so that they can be applied routinely in the field in an integrated management programme.Secondly, they must be sufficiently exact to give reliable results that may be compared with previously set out treatment thresholds.In turn, the treatment thresholds must first be evaluated and contrasted experimentally, taking into account biological, economic and environmental aspects in a given crop and area.

The Integrated Production programmes currently applied in our crops require always risk assessment procedures for pests and diseases given by sampling methods and treatment thresholds.A great effort is needed to provide applicable and sufficiently precise methodologies if we wish Integrated Production techniques, considered as the most rational and sustainable system of crop management, to be consolidated and disseminated in the future.The aim of this Symposium is to expound and analyse the current situation of sampling techniques and treatment thresholds for pests and diseases in our country’s principal crops.

F. Garcia Marí
Mediterranean Agroforestry Institute
Valencia Polytechnic University