Importance of native vegetation to beneficial insects and its role in reducing insect pest damage in cotton

Abstract

Conservation biological control is one of the strategies in integrated pest management (IPM.) Its aim is to conserve naturally occurring predators within the agricultural landscape. Modifying the landscape to enhance predator efficiency, referred to as habitat management, is one of the methods used in conservation biological control. Habitat management, until recently has largely been ignored within many IPM programs. Area wide management of pests has changed this perception and there is now a realisation that events outside the crop impacts on events within the crop.