Living Mulches for Sustainable Pest Management

Abstract

The need for non-chemical insect pest management is the demand of present-day lifestyle emphasized by the demand for organic food production and environmental degradation caused by synthetic insect control measures. Mulches are a well-known environmental diversification technique that has been used in agri-culture for decades. They have become commonplace in cultivating a wide range of crops worldwide, gaining significance in organic systems as a sustainable manage-ment strategy for controlling weeds and pests and providing other ecological benefits. Mulches can also improve the soil’s structure, porosity, and fertility, making it more suppressive and difficult for insect pests to survive. Mulches come in various shapes and compositions, including organic, non-organic, alive, synthetic, dead, biodegrad-able, and non-biodegradable mulches. In this chapter, we discussed the potential for using live mulches in biological pest management. Moreover, we discussed the problems caused by living mulches, such as insect pest infestation, weed infestation, disease transmission, and bird infestations.