Guest Lecture - Integrated Crop Protection

Question 1

What are some constraints to crop production and total yield?

Answer 1

1. Growth determining factors (genetics)
2. Growth limiting factors (environmental)
3. Growth reducing factors (crop pests)

Question 2

What are the corresponding yields to the constraints? (Highest to lowest)

Answer 2

1. Growth determining factor - potential yield
2. Growth limiting factor - attainable yield
3. Growth reducing factor - actual yield

Question 3

How do you reduce the growth reducing factors in order to maximize yield?

Answer 3

Weeds, insects, diseases

Question 4

Explain how weeds reduce the growth reducing factor

Answer 4

• A plant growing where it is not wanted
• One of the most important constraints to crop production

Question 5

Explain how insects reduce the growth reducing factor

Answer 5

• Insects feed on or transmit diseases to plants
• ## Cause infestations when populations reach outbreak densities

Question 6

Define diseases

Answer 6

Any change from the normal state of a plant due to a pathogen or environmental factors

Question 7

Abiotic vs biotic diseases

Answer 7

Abiotic: non-infectious and non-transmissible

Biotic: Infectious and transmissible

Question 8

What are some diseases of canola?

Answer 8

White stem rot, blackleg, clubroot, and alternia blackspot

Question 9

Pest management: explain regulatory strategies

Answer 9

• Excluding pests from a particular area or minimizing their spread
• Government level

Ex: rats in alberta

Question 10

Pest management: explain cultural management strategies

Answer 10

• Manipulating the environment to make it unfavorable for the pest
• First line of defence for crop protection

Ex: crop rotation, sanitation, tillage

Question 11

Pest management: explain biological control

Answer 11

• Control pests using other organisms
• Using suppressive soils (contain microorganism antagonistic to a pathogen)

Ex: prickly pear and moth in Australia

Question 12

Explain the 3 types of biological control pest management strategies?

Answer 12

1. Classical - establishing one or more species
2. Inundative - biocontrol agents are mass produced (biopesticides)
3. Augmentative - enhancing existing biocontrol agents

Question 13

Pest management: explain host plant resistance

Answer 13

• ability of crop plants to overcome pest infestations
• simplest and most convenient method for pest control
• bred for resistance by crossing with plants that carry the resistance genes

Ex: leaf and stem rust resistance

Question 14

Pest management: chemical control and pesticides

Answer 14

• using chemicals that are toxic to plant pathogens

Ex: fungicides, insecticides, herbicides
Applications: standing crop, seed treatments, and soil drenching

Question 15

Define transgenic crops

Answer 15

Crops containing genes that have been transferred into the plant using genetic engineering and recombinant dna tech

Mainly: canola, cotton, soybean, and corn

Question 16

What chemicals are in herbicide tolerant crops?

Answer 16

Glyphosphate and glufosinate

Question 17

Explain genome (gene) editing

Answer 17

• insertion, deletion, or replacement of dna at a specific site in the genome of the organism
• nucleases are used to cut the dna strand
• can eliminate foreign genes

Question 18

What are the regulatory prospects of Canada, US, and Europe?

Answer 18

Canada: regulating and conducting safety assessments for all food items
US: plants produced by genome editing are not considered as GM
Europe: gene-edited crops and GMOs have the same regulations

Question 19

What is the goal of Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?

Answer 19

Integration of all available methods for pest control in a way that optimizes benefits and minimizes damages to non-target organisms

Pesticides > biological control > resistance breeding and mod. > cultural