| Due to the benefits of diversity, autonomous ecosystem management and careful farmers' stewardship, pest and disease control doesn't pose a profound problem in ecological agriculture practice. However, during the conversion period, and in ecological horticulture, particularly in fruit growing, this preventive control is often not sufficient enough, and additional control, mostly (curative) spraying is needed. This need for additional pest and disease control (spraying) in ecological horticulture, may be linked with our incomplete understanding of the role of those subsystems in the agro-ecosystem as a whole. Currently, organic standards normally do specify permitted (environmental friendly, mainly natural substances), prohibited (synthetic pesticides),... |
