Physical protection barriers against pests and diseases, a multi crop experience

Summary

Organic agriculture regulations allow only a limited number of plant protection products (PPPs), and the use of a few of them, as in the case of copper application, are becoming
more restrictive. Furthermore, organic farmers are challenged by new threats, caused by climatic changes (e.g., higher survival rate of fungi and pests in the winter time) and by the introduction of alien species (FAO, 2019), phenomena that are not easily controlled by current PPPs. Physical barriers help to protect crops against diseases and pests, and therefore represent a possible strategy to produce fruits using only a limited number of PPP
treatments per year (Chouinard et al., 2019). At present, experience has been gained for only a small number of fruit species. For that reason, combined rain and pest protection nets were tested on different crops and cultivars to evaluate the potentials and limits of these systems. The first results obtained with cherries, grapes, and different apple varieties showed a marked reduction in pre- and post-storage fungal infections, and due to the lateral nets, pest damages decreased as well. The results obtained on apricot are not yet satisfactory.