Chemicals in integrated control

The objective of Integrated Control (IC) is to provide economic and competitive cropping with as few undesirable effects of crop‐protection measures on the environment, the user or the consumer as possible. A general scheme of relevant variables, characteristics and their interrelationships is defined and those relations and aspects critical for realising the objective are identified. Particular attention is given to the function of pesticides and their adverse effects on beneficial organisms. Chemical control is least preferred of all effective measures because of possible undesirable effects. Nevertheless, chemical and biological measures are very much complementary and there is no reason to expect a major change in this situation. Apart from the general requirements for environmental, user and consumer safety, pesticides for use in IC schemes should be effective against target organisms but (largely) harmless to the beneficial organisms used in the biological measures, i.e. intrinsically selective or suitable for selective application. Because different profiles of pesticides are required to cover the needs of IC, the availability of a number of different pesticides and, especially, reliable information on their activity spectra is important. The need for, and development of, a database covering all possible effective measures for crop protection which might fill this need in The Netherlands, as an aid to scientists developing schemes for integrated control and for extensionists advising growers, is presented as a solution to the main constraint identified for IC in protected and other crops.