POTATO INTEGRATED PEST MANAGEMENT IN CURRENT CLIMATIC CHANGES TO PROMOTE A SUSTENABLE AGRICULTURE

Potato is one of the most important crop worldwide and unfortunately a lot of pests and pathogens impact it causing quantitative and qualitative losses every year. An experiment was conducted to the National Institute of Research and Development for Potato and Sugar Beet Brasov in 2024 to provide an integrated control strategy, based on efficient and suitable methods for technological use in poato field in actual climatic change context. The field experiment was carried out for analysing factors like climate conditions, agricultural practices, and the presence and impact of diseases and pests on the potato crop. Incidence of potato foliar diseases, late and early blight, was quantified during the vegetation, Colorado beetle was controlled by treatments and the wireworms presence and impact on tubers was observed at the harvest time. Dealing with the strategy of the European Union to reduce the use of pesticides enhancing food security and environmental quality, this study looks applying a technology with a minimum volume of pesticides, whose dose should be as low as possible. The aim of an integrated pest management strategy is to reduce the number of treatments used to control pests and diseases in potato crops, promoting the principles of sustainable agriculture