Utilizing Integrated Pest Management In The Greenhouse
April 7, 2014 
Being solution-driven is important in any industry, and agriculture is no different. It was Mark Zittel’s need for pest control solutions that led him to spearhead an on-farm study for two years to test whether beneficial insects could have an impact on greenhouse pests.
“Mark wanted to see if that impact would translate to large-scale operations in the field — and have a considerable impact on insecticide use,” says Robert Hadad, a Cornell Cooperative Extension fresh-market specialist.
New York grower Mark Zittel provides habitat for beneficial insects, which has helped him keep pepper transplants nearly pest-free. Photo credit: Kristen Winiecki.
Zittel farms 240 acres of vegetables in New York’s Eden Valley, land that’s been in the family upward of 120 years. Now, Hadad says, Zittel’s greenhouse-grown vegetable transplants — tens of thousands of plants — are nearly pest-free. And providing habitat for beneficials has kept them that way in the field, too.
Go back a decade, though, and you wouldn’t peg Zittel as a natural for using beneficials. True, as a plant science major at Cornell University, Zittel learned — and has since used — many core IPM practices.
“But they’d barely begun looking at beneficial insects back then,” he says. He caught wind of new research on beneficials in 2006 “but it took about four or five years for me to digest it,” Zittel says.
IPM Control For Aphids, Thrips
Zittel grows his transplants in greenhouses that are also home to his wholesale spring home-garden crop. Greenhouses full of flowering plants offer the same benefits to pests — nourishment, sun, and warmth — as they do to plants.
Zittel’s peppers were especially hard-hit by two tiny pests: aphids and thrips. These pests simply hitched a ride outside on the transplants early in the growing season and soon exploded into full-scale infestations.
“We were throwing everything we could at them in the greenhouse,”
Zittel says. “But once outside, the pests just rebounded out of control. Spray residues from the greenhouse were killing beneficials in the field, too.”
The IPM answer? Marigolds and a mortal enemy: the Orius bug, also known as the minute pirate bug.
Thrips and aphids love marigolds. So does the Orius bug, which dines on pollen when pests are scarce. Long story short: Flats of marigolds provided a nursery of sorts for these tiny bugs until prey populations built high enough to sustain them. Zittel transplanted those same marigolds outdoors alongside the peppers.
Reduction In Sprays
All in all, Zittel says he’s been able to cut insecticide use by as many as eight sprays per season. In fact, Zittel’s work recently earned him an Excellence in IPM award from the New York State (NYS) Integrated Pest Management Program.
“Mark’s commitment to IPM, to the environmental well-being of his farm, is inspiring,” says Jennifer Grant, co-director of the NYS IPM Program. “We hope it’s inspiring to others.”
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