In February 2022, the government and nine of the parliamentary parties reached a political agreement on the 2022-2026 spraying strategy. The agreement includes areas of action for:

- A record low pesticide load
- Research and promotion of alternatives to pesticides
- Spreading good farming practice (Integrated Pest Management)

A new project, led by Assistant Professor Thies Marten Heick from the Department of Agroecology, will support all three action areas. 

Innovate-IPM is the name of the project, which will investigate different integrated pest management (IPM) tools in interaction with alternative protection products. The project is supported by the Pesticides Research Programme of the Danish Environment Agency, and is thus also part of the political agreement on the pesticides strategy. 

"The starting point for our new project is the increasing demand for a reduction of pesticide use in Denmark, so that we can have an even more sustainable agricultural production than we already have. With the latest legislation, there is simply an urgent need for us to free ourselves from dependence on pesticides," explains Thies Marten Heick. 

Alternative products in focus 

According to the researchers the need for plant protection will not diminish when we use fewer pesticides - quite the opposite. That's why alternative products and strategies are needed. And this is precisely where the project will play a role. 

"There are various alternative products for plant protection, such as biological control agents and various plant extracts. They are environmentally friendly and they are not prone to resistance. Therefore, they are very attractive. Unfortunately, until now they have been difficult to use and include in plant protection strategies, as they have simply had too low and unpredictable results in the field," says Thies Marten Heick. 

For this reason, the researchers will not recommend alternative products as a stand-alone treatment in the field. 

"They act preventively and will only have an effect of up to 60% compared to traditional fungicides," he explains. 

Innovate-IPM will instead include alternative products in strategies that include other IPM tools such as decision support systems and host resistance. 

Developing and testing new IPM strategies

The focus of the project is septoria in wheat and mildew in onions. Wheat is one of the most widely grown crops in Denmark, so reducing fungicides in wheat will have a major impact on sustainability. Onions, on the other hand, are a less important crop in Danish fields, yet it is a crop that is sprayed intensively to reduce mildew, just as fungicides, according to the researchers, are already coming up short in mildew control in onions because various active ingredients can no longer be used. 

"In other words, there is a great need for the development of alternative methods of disease control. And this is exactly what we want to do with the Innovate IPM project," says Thies Marten Heick, who will investigate the key components of IPM strategies against the two diseases. 

"We want to develop and test the IPM strategies so that they can achieve successful results in Danish fields," he says.

Reduce fungicide use by up to 65 %

Innovate-IPM will thus develop effective and successful IPM strategies that can control diseases in wheat and onions with a significantly reduced use of pesticides. To achieve this goal, the researchers will: 

• determine the efficacy of different alternative products, the factors (e.g. adjuvants) that influence their efficiency, and investigate their mode of action
• Screen for resistant onion varieties
• adapt existing decision support systems used for conventional fungicides to optimise the timing of alternative products
• develop and validate new IPM strategies involving alternative products, adapted decision support systems and host resistance

"We expect to reduce fungicide use by 50% in both crops in the short term and to reduce use by up to 65% in the longer term. However, this requires farmers to have confidence in the new tools and alternative products if this result is to be achieved," explains Thies Marten Heick.