This book focuses on pests (insect and mite) and diseases (fungal, bacterial, viral and nematode) in protected horticulture (fruits, vegetables and ornamentals) using physical, cultural, chemical, biological, host resistance, and integrated methods. It opens with chapters describing the setting in which integrated pest and disease control operates, i.e., the greenhouse and its environment. Subsequent chapters present the basic strategies and tactics of different control methods including integrated control, with special reference to greenhouse crops. Further chapters include the different facets of biological pest and disease control – its scientific bases, its development in practice, its commercialization and quality control. The concluding chapters of the book highlight the present status of integrated pest and disease control for the most important greenhouse crops (fruits, vegetables and flower crops) worldwide. The book’s final chapter explores future challenges for researchers assigned to identify non-pesticide methods and integrate sustainable pest management technologies that can contribute to increased productivity, such as breeding for durable resistance, biological control and devising integrated methods that will have minimal adverse environmental and social impacts. Among productivity-enhancing technologies, protected cultivation has a tremendous potential to increase the yield of vegetables and flower cro ps by several fold. Pests and diseases are one of the major challenges to protected cultivation. Year-round warm temperatures and relatively high humidity together with abundant food make the protected environment of greenhouses highly attractive to pests and diseases. Nevertheless, very little attention has been paid to the manipulation of greenhouse environments expressly to avoid disease epidemics and insect infestations, which together can easily account for 30% of crop losses. This book will be of immense value to all members of the scientific community involved in teaching, research and extension activities on protected horticulture. It also offers a useful reference guide for policymakers and practicing farmers, and can be used as a textbook for postgraduate courses.

This book focuses on pests (insect and mite) and diseases (fungal, bacterial, viral and nematode) in protected horticulture (fruits, vegetables and ornamentals) using physical, cultural, chemical, biological, host resistance, and integrated methods. It opens with chapters describing the setting in which integrated pest and disease control operates, i.e., the greenhouse and its environment. Subsequent chapters present the basic strategies and tactics of different control methods including integrated control, with special reference to greenhouse crops. Further chapters include the different facets of biological pest and disease control – its scientific bases, its development in practice, its commercialization and quality control. The concluding chapters of the book highlight the present status of integrated pest and disease control for the most important greenhouse crops (fruits, vegetables and flower crops) worldwide. The book’s final chapter explores future challenges for researchers assigned to identify non-pesticide methods and integrate sustainable pest management technologies that can contribute to increased productivity, such as breeding for durable resistance, biological control and devising integrated methods that will have minimal adverse environmental and social impacts. Among productivity-enhancing technologies, protected cultivation has a tremendous potential to increase the yield of vegetables and flower cro ps by several fold. Pests and diseases are one of the major challenges to protected cultivation. Year-round warm temperatures and relatively high humidity together with abundant food make the protected environment of greenhouses highly attractive to pests and diseases. Nevertheless, very little attention has been paid to the manipulation of greenhouse environments expressly to avoid disease epidemics and insect infestations, which together can easily account for 30% of crop losses. This book will be of immense value to all members of the scientific community involved in teaching, research and extension activities on protected horticulture. It also offers a useful reference guide for policymakers and practicing farmers, and can be used as a textbook for postgraduate courses.

Sustainability is defined as the use of natural resources without risking their exploitation by future generations. Agriculture can only be considered as sustainable if it includes a suitable system of plant genetic resources conservation. In this book, the modern concepts of agricultural sustainability and the economics of agricultural sustainability are discussed. A new framework for analysis and improvement of the governance of agrarian sustainability is presented. In addition, specific modes for environmental governance in Bulgarian agriculture are identified and the efficiency of market, private and public modes are assessed. Furthermore, the regulation measures through nutrient solution regulation and environmental control on nitrate accumulation in vegetables are summarised, highlighting the control strategy. Arguments for and against government strategies to promote large-scale agricultural units in emerging economies are also analysed and an economic theory that models agricultural supply in emerging economies is presented. Other chapters in this book describe the role of fluorescent pseudomonads in soil fertility, biodegradation of agricultural pollutants, plant growth-promotion, biocontrol of weeds, phytopathogens and nematodes. Information about the global relevance of China's and Australia's cotton industries are also given, and the structure and other significant features of their cotton industries are compared. The main characteristics and importance of plant growth-promoting bacteria in sustainable agriculture in tropical agriculture are looked at as well. Developing alternative ways to control plant disease, with good agronomic and horticultural practices is becoming the focus of many researchers. This book also includes information on ways to control plant diseases in order to maintain the quality and abundance of food produced by growers around the world.

This publication capitalizes on the experience of scientists from the North Africa and Near East countries, in collaboration with experts from around the world, specialized in the different aspects of greenhouse crop production. It provides a comprehensive description and assessment of the greenhouse production practices in use in Mediterranean climate areas that have helped diversify vegetable production and increase productivity. The publication is also meant to be used as a reference and tool for trainers and growers as well as other actors in the greenhouse vegetables value chain in this region.

This collection reviews current advances in integrated pest management (IPM) for horticultural crops, including the use of biological control mechanisms, technological developments such as proximal sensors, agronomic practices and physical control.

The book offers a rich toolkit of relevant, adoptable ecosystem-based practices that can help the world's 500 million smallholder farm families achieve higher productivity, profitability and resource-use efficiency while enhancing natural capital.

A comprehensive, practical text which covers a diverse range of hydroponic and protected cropping techniques, systems, greenhouse types and environments. It also details the use of indoor plant factories, vertical systems, organic hydroponics and aquaponics. Worldwide hydroponic cropping operations can vary from large, corporate producers running many hectares of greenhouse systems particularly for crops such as tomato, cucumber, capsicum and lettuce, to smaller-scale growers growing fresh produce for local markets.

The frontiers of technologies have been constantly expanded in many industries around the world, including the agricultural sector. Among many “frontier technologies” in agriculture, are protected agriculture, precision agriculture, and vertical farming, all of which depart substantially from many conventional agricultural production methods. It is not yet clear how these technologies can become adoptable in developing countries, including, for example, South Asian countries like India. This paper briefly reviews the issues associated withthese three types of frontier technologies. We do so by systematically checkingthe academic articleslisted in Google Scholar, which primarily focus on these technologies in developing countries in Asia. Where appropriate, a few widely-cited overview articles for each technology were also reviewed. The findings generally reveal where performances of these technologiescan be raised potentially, based on the general trends in the literature. Where evidence is rich, some generalizable economic insights about these technologies are provided. For protected agriculture, recent research has focusedsignificantly on various features of protective structures (tunnel heights, covering materials, shading structures, frames and sizes) indicating that there are potentials for adaptive research on such structures to raise the productivity of protected agriculture. The research on protected agriculture also focuses on types of climate parameters controlled, andenergy structures, among others. For precision agriculture, recent research has focused on the spatial variability of production environments, development of efficient and suitable data management systems, efficiency of various types of image analyses and optical sensing, efficiency of sensors and related technologies, designs of precision agriculture equipment, optimal inputs and service uses, and their spatial allocations, potentials of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and nano-technologies. For vertical farming, research has often highlighted the variations in technologies based on out-door / indoor systems, ways to improve plants’ access to light (natural or artificial), growing medium and nutrient / water supply, advanced features like electricity generation and integration of production space into an office / residential space, and water treatment. For India, issues listed above may be some of the key areas that the country can draw on from other more advanced countries in Asia, or can focus in its adaptive research to improve the relevance and applicability of these technologies to the country.

The International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM), established in 1962, is an intergovernmental organization of 13 countries: Albania, Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey. Four institutes (Bari, Italy; Chania, Greece; Montpellier, France; and Zaragoza, Spain) provide postgraduate education at the Master of Science level. CIHEAM promotes research networks on Mediterranean agricultural priorities, supports the organization of specialized education in member countries, holds seminars and workshops bringing together technologists and scientists involved in Mediterranean agriculture and regularly produces diverse publications including the series Options Méditerranéennes. Through these activities, CIHEAM promotes North/South dialogue and international co-operation for agricultural development in the Mediterranean region. Over the past decade, the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza has developed a number of training and research-supporting activities in the field of agroecology and sustainability of agricultural production systems. Some of these activities have been concerned with the rational use of pesticides and more particularly with the implementation of integrated control systems in order to gain in efficacy and decrease both the environmental impact and the negative repercussions for the commercialization of agricultural products.

Continued population growth, rapidly changing consumption patterns and the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation are driving limited resources of food, energy, water and materials towards critical thresholds worldwide. These pressures are likely to be substantial across Africa, where countries will have to find innovative ways to boost crop and livestock production to avoid becoming more reliant on imports and food aid. Sustainable agricultural intensification - producing more output from the same area of land while reducing the negative environmental impacts - represents a solution for millions of African farmers. This volume presents the lessons learned from 40 sustainable agricultural intensification programmes in 20 countries across Africa, commissioned as part of the UK Government's Foresight project. Through detailed case studies, the authors of each chapter examine how to develop productive and sustainable agricultural systems and how to scale up these systems to reach many more millions of people in the future. Themes covered include crop improvements, agroforestry and soil conservation, conservation agriculture, integrated pest management, horticulture, livestock and fodder crops, aquaculture, and novel policies and partnerships.