THE SANITARY QUALITY OF SUBSTRATES: A KEY COMPONENT IN IPP AND ITS POTENTIAL ROLE IN THE SPREAD OF INVASIVE SPECIES OF PESTS AND DISEASES IN GREENHOUSE CROPS

     Greenhouses are by the nature of their productions systems prone to invasions of new pests and pathogens.
Some invasive species have characteristics allowing them to be moved readily by the shipment of plant materials and agricultural products such as substrates between widely separated geographical areas, allowing pests and diseases to become internationally distributed, often in relatively short periods.
Such new introductions disrupt existing management programs and require new responses.
Greenhouse operators need to predict, prevent and remediate such invasions by deliberate collective action.
Prediction should flow from crop-specific, country-specific inventories of current greenhouse pests to identify pests of greenhouse crops still confined to local areas, but which have features conducive to further spread.
Prevention should be fostered by development of web-based identification systems focused on the high risk potential invaders identified in the prediction phase.
Remediation requires application of adequate measures.
This approach may require search for new natural enemies in the native ranges of new pests and their introduction to a new area.
These activities require the development of a new body probably under the auspice of FAO, such as an international consortium of greenhouse specialists with technical expertise to conduct these activities.
Such a coordinated effort to confront invasive species in greenhouses is likely to be more effective than the current fragmented system based on individual responses of specific countries.
      In this paper we raise the problem of invasive species through substrate and other means and we attempt to discuss some of the ways we could predict and remediate future invasions of pests and diseases.