Alternatives to Methyl Bromide; IPM in three typical danish flour mills

5. Conclusions

Increased sanitation’s

The use of methyl bromide as a pesticide was banned in Denmark by the 1st of January 1998. Danish flour mills, of which the majority in the past have based their pest control on this fumigant, have handled this new situation by adopting IPM strategies. The Danish mills have primarily increased their efforts in sanitation together with shutdowns in production and surface treatments with insecticides, these initiatives have managed problems with insect pests.

Old mills with a construction that supports hidden infestations of pests seem to be the ones that have the biggest problems with the removal using methyl bromide as a fast and highly penetrating fumigation method.

Documentation’s

Creation of a useful documentation on the efficacy of the insect pest control was found to be difficult. The next main step forward could be the adoption of the working methods known from the HACCP-principles. In this way a team of relevant persons secures that a co-ordinated strategy is applied to the pest control.

The IPM systems can be improved

Without any doubt, the actual IPM systems in the three mills can be improved and several recommendations are made on behalf of the project. These improvements are believed to be of major importance. But with the low price of flour, in Denmark, there will be an upper economic limit for the cost of insect pest control. This might have the consequence, that other improvements, which can be recommended on the basis of a sound IPM system, will not be accepted by the mill if the output is believed to be of minor importance.

The fact that methyl bromide was prohibited in Denmark has forced the Danish mills to improve their pest management systems, and for the time being they gather experience on how to operate without fumigation’s with methyl bromide.

The mills need to have better tools for monitoring the populations of T.confusum. It is to be hoped that science will improve its efforts in developing more efficient monitoring systems against this cosmopolitan pest species of flourmills.