Integrated Pest Management Plan for Scottish Growers

Overview

This plan has been adapted from the National Farmers Union Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plan, promoted by the Voluntary Initiative, to help Scottish farmers meet their legal obligation to take reasonable precautions to protect human health and the environment when using pesticides.  Completing an IPM plan will help the landowner/contractor to make the best possible and most sustainable use of all available methods for controlling pests, weeds and diseases. As well as benefits for farming businesses and the environment, the IPM plan also provides CPD points with both BASIS and NRoSO.

What is Integrated Pest Management (IPM)?

Integrated pest management is a site specific, whole farm approach to maximising the efficiency of production whilst minimising negative effects on the environment.  This should involve minimising pest, weed and disease risks and includes the use of crop rotations, appropriate cultivation techniques, the use of resistant varieties, tailored and efficient use of artificial inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides and fossil fuels and the enhancement of wildlife habitats.  Pest monitoring and the use of thresholds for treatment are a component in reducing reliance on pesticides.

What are the benefits of completing this plan?

This plan is designed to:

• Help identify and demonstrate the use of IPM techniques on your enterprises and reduce your reliance on pesticides
• Help you maximise the effectiveness of crop protection on your enterprises
• Help you make long-term plans to reduce the pest burden on your enterprises
• Help you tailor annual inputs in response to in-season risks
• Identify where appropriate additional IPM practices which will help reduce waste and improve your business practice and productivity
• Help to identify opportunities for improving pesticide stewardship
• Provide CPD points with BASIS and NRoSO

How is the plan set out?

The plan has six sections covering forward planning to reduce risks and actions that can be taken mid-season to tailor inputs to the seasonal risk, as follows:

1. Background
2. Pre-planning
3. Identification of major risks
4. Sustainable use of pesticides
5. Use of monitoring and surveillance
6. Further plans and additional reading

Who should complete this plan?

The plan can be completed by any farm or horticulture enterprise that is using professional pesticides to produce crops, ornamentals, fodder or feed including grassland/pasture.

When you complete the IPM plan:

• We recommend that it should be completed by the land manager in collaboration with your spray operator
• We recommend that you discuss the plan and opportunities to enhance integrated crop management with whoever provides your professional agronomy advice before and after completing the plan to maximise the benefit of the planning process.

How should the plan be completed and how will the data be used?

The plan is available online and should take approximately 15 minutes to complete.  It is intended that the data from this plan will be collated and used to demonstrate the implementation of IPM practices in the farming industry as a whole but not for individual enterprises.

Clicking on 'More information' will give advice on how to complete each question and also provide helpful sources of advice and information on the subjects covered in them.

Once the plan is completed online, an electronic copy of the plan will be emailed to you as a PDF.

There may be a need for farm/nursery businesses with multiple holdings to complete more than one plan if holdings have appreciably different cropping practices.  The decision to complete more than one plan is left to the discretion of the individual businesses.

How often should the plan be reviewed?

It is recommended that the plan should be reviewed on a regular basis when you are considering crop protection practices; a thorough review should take place annually.

How should reviews be recorded once a plan has been produced?

1. Any small changes to the plan made between annual reviews should be recorded on the hard copy.

2. At the 1^st annual review after the plan has been generated if little/nothing of note has changed in the crop protection practices, and if it is appropriate to continue to use the existing plan, then the 1^st annual review should be noted and dated on the hard copy.

3. At the 2^nd annual review an updated IPM website plan should be generated, which incorporates all of the measures on the existing plan, any changes since the last version was produced and any new undertakings.  (It is important that the data is resubmitted at the 2^nd annual review in order to keep an up-to-date record of trends in IPM in case you are asked to demonstrate what you have done.)

Terminology

Pesticides: In the plan the term ‘pesticides’ is used as a general term to describe all insecticides, herbicides (weed killers), fungicides, slug pellets etc.  It does not cover rodenticides and other biocides.