The aim of IPM is to reduce the use of chemicals in pest management, and instead use a combination of control measures (biocontrol, cultural, genetic engineering, chemical) that are less destructive to the environment. IPM has become important where traditional pest management strategies have become ineffective, costly or bad for the environment. IPM is a pest management strategy which requires a lot of information. It requires a knowledge of the life cycle of the pest species, so that the control measures hit it when it is least able to cope. IPM makes use of plant breeding, biocontrol or genetic engineering which all require many years of scientific research. Developing an IPM strategy requires looking, observing, experimenting and being prepared to change and learn from mistakes. All major agricultural industries are looking at developing IPM strategies to control their pests. IPM offers long term cost savings, effective control and a good image for the industries involved because their is a lower impact of the pest control strategies on the environment. Integrated Pest Management and the cotton industry The Australian cotton industry is one industry which is putting a lot of effort into developing Integrated Pest Management strategies to control pests of cotton. This industry is Australia's second biggest agricultural export earner after wheat. The crop is worth one billion (that's $1,000,000,000!) every year. It is also the crop that uses the largest quantity of chemicals to control pests. In the 1950's, large plantations of cotton were planted in the Ord River valley in Western Australia. Two native catepillars (Helocoverpa species) moved into the cotton fields and became a serious threat. Initially these catepillars were controlled using insecticides. The success of the pesticides in underpinning the cotton industry in the Ord River, it prompted the then Prime Minister of Australia, Robert Menzies, to say that humans had "conquered nature". In the 1960's the catepillars became resistant to the pesticides that were being used to control them. Farmers tried to overcome this problem by increasing the rate of spraying. But the catepillars only became more resistant to the chemicals and in the end, the cotton industry in the Ord River valley had to be abandoned. A new cotton industry was started up in the Namoi valley of NSW. Here the cotton industry had to look for alternatives to just relying on pesticides to control pests. A range of pest control measures are included in the overall strategy. Cotton plants have been genetically engineered to include a gene that produced a poison. This gene had been taken from a bacterium (Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt), and the poison only affected certain families of catepillars. These cotton plants have been genetically engineered to produce the Bt toxin. Although the cotton has not been sprayed, you can see that the yield of cotton (the white, fluffy balls) is high compared to the normal cotton plants below These normal cotton plants have not been sprayed to protect them against insect attack. Without the Bt gene to protect them, insect damage has devastated the yield of cotton. •In the paddocks which contain the genetically engineered cotton, about 10% of the area is planted with cotton which has not been genetically engineered, so that some catepillars survive every year, and do not come into contact with the poison. This reduces the risk that the catepillars will become resistant to the poison in the genetically engineered cotton, which has happened in other countries which did not provide these areas. •The life cycle of other insect pests was studied carefully to find out the most effective spraying time, so that the amount of pesticides used could be reduced. •A number of different types of insecticides are used to reduce the chance of insect pests becoming resistant to one of them •Because fewer insecticides are used, the total number of insect species and other small animals that survive in the cotton fields are much greater. Many of these survivors are predators or parasites of other insect pests, which helps reduce the number of pests in the crop, and means that these pests do not need to be sprayed with other pesticides Integrated Pest Management is used as a pest control strategy because  1. it reduces the amount of pesticides that need to be sprayed 2. it is safer for humans and the environment 3. it reduces the risk of pests developing resistance to pesticides 4. it is good for the image of the industry that employs it as a standard Integrated Pest Management is not always used because 1.it is expensive to set up in the short term (cost of research) 2. it requires research into the biology of the pest organism, and makes great use of biocontrol, genetic engineering and plant breeding, all of which take time to develop 3. pests are controlled satisfactorally using simple pest control strategies Go to the Careers section to meet some people who are looking for new ways to control pests using Integrated Pest Management.