Plant Protection

The classical definition of Plant Protection relates to protecting plants that are useful to or cultivated by humans. The range of potential pests is tremendous and includes both micro-and-macro organisms. Plant protection has direct impact on crop yield and farmers’ profitability.
In our reality, in which human population is constantly growing, arable lands decrease while temperatures rise, pests develop resistance and the ecological balance is disrupted, sustainable plant protection poses a formidable challenge.
Plant protection through sustainable agriculture is still a developing field but already now the conclusion has been reached that pests and useful insect populations must be managed and controlled rather than automatically exterminated. The change in approach comes from recognizing the multiple risks and damage from exterminating methods, including residual chemical toxins in food, increased pest resistance while harming their natural enemies, and harm to the entire food chain and ecological balance.
Management and control of pests and useful insects is based on scientific methods integrating a range of tactics designed to ensure protection of agricultural crops and keeping damage to crops from accumulating to economic damage, while minimizing risks to humans and the environment.
Plant Protection Sciences engage in identifying the pest, studying the potential damage and the conditions that can intensify or mitigate it. It is also concerned with developing tools to reduce the damage through a wide range of measures that can be divided into four main approaches:
1. Physical prevention of pests from reaching the crop by means of obstacles such as fences, nets, repellents, deterring environmental conditions, trap plants, light/sound reflecting materials or devices, traps and scarecrows.
2. Preventing pests from settling and establishing a population through means such as changes in plant surface or changes in chemical composition of the plant by fertilization and organic soil amendments.
3. Controlling of pests population by using chemical or biological pesticides, parasitoids and natural enemies.
4. Preventing reproduction through various methods including pheromones, sterilized males and microbial mating-disrupting.
Plant Protection takes a holistic approach to all populations of organisms in the environment, some of which are desirable for humans (such as commercial crops), others are undesirable (pests) and others yet are transparent, or neutral to farmers (neither pests nor crops). These populations maintain mutual interactions and balances both within their species as well as between them on all trophic levels of the ecosystems and habitats on the ground, water and air.
Sustainable agriculture aspires to increase as much as possible the yields and benefit for humans with a minimal disruption of these biodiverse and balanced ecosystems, within the understanding that natural balance works in service of humans seeking to protect commercial crops. This comprehensive approach encompasses actions taken both in and out of the field within the same geographic space. Sustainable agriculture-based Plant Protection is a year-round process that is based on us understanding these balances and ecosystems and reigning them in for our own use- wisely.
Subject areas and Activity

Agricultural Research Organization,
Newe Ya‘ar Research Center, P.O. Box 1021, Ramat Yishay, Israel
Phone numbers: 972-4-9539595
Social Networks:
נושאים נחקרים בתחום
תת קטגוריה

תת קטגוריה

פעילות בתחום
Our Five Platforms » Field Crops » Plant Protection

Investigating greenhouse gases emissions in plant invasion hotspots as a model for aquatic ecosystem restoration and management
The new year brings some success in research funding. Recently, a project led by Dr. Keren Yanuka-Golub (Galilee Society) and Dr. Maor Matzrafi (Newe Ya’ar)

Just got funded – Precise application of herbicides using drones
The new year brings some success in research funding. Recently, a project led by Prof. Yael Dubowski (Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion) and

Eco-friendly Next Generation Soil Amendments for Soil and Plant Health
Dr. Eric Palevski, Newe Ya’ar Research Center. Soils are the major reservoir of global biodiversity, the substrate for supporting agriculture and food security, regulating greenhouse

About the association between no-tillage field management and soil-borne diseases
Roni Cohen, Newe Ya’ar Research Center Introduction No tillage or minimal tillage is important for maintaining undisturbed physical structure of the soil, soil moisture, saving

Integrated Pest Management
Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is a widely practiced approach to pest control that employs a wide range of tools as biological, physical, horticultural, genetic

Monitoring Barn Owl Nesting
One of the Model Farm’s objectives is reducing the use of pesticides against rodents. Barn owls are known to be key players in rodent control