ABSTRACT
Trials were carried out during three seasons on 58 farms, consisting of three treatments: farmers' practices: pesticide applications based on economic thresholds: and untreated plots. On average, pesticide treatments based on economic threshold levels (ETL) gave an additional net return of 145 Pesos per ha, compared to farmers' practices. ETLs are an essential part of integrated pest management and under the present situation for small rice farmers, the cash spent on insecticides competes with other input factors within the farm enterprise of rice production. When investigating farmers' crop protection practices it is important to understand how they arrive at spray decisions. It is often assumed that they use calendar spraying, resulting in a high number of applications. In irrigated rice in the Philippines it was found that farmers, in one way or another, do monitor pests, before they make any spray decision.
