Sustainable agriculture and respect of biodiversity

The Green Cabana’s products come from sustainable agriculture and
respect the principles of IPM Integrated Pest Management.

Rational application of a combination of measures :

Culturales Physical Mechanics Biological Chemical Prevent Harmless Intervention Toxic

Crop

Choice of geographical areas that are naturally appropriate for the culture carried out (temperature, sunshine, rainfall, natural organic structure of the soil).

  • Natural soil preparation,

  • Natural weed and plant residues free from the previous crop,

  • Use of clean material,

  • Elimination of all sources of inoculum,

  • Seed selection.

 

Mechanical – physics

  • Use of insect net protections,

  • Establishment of airlock in front of the greenhouses,

  • Installation of yellow bands and plates distributed in farms,
  • Use of natural means and regulatory mechanisms close to those that exist in nature.

Biological

Use of an alternative strategy to conventional chemical control against crop pests. Biological control is based on a natural relationship between two living beings : 

  • The target (undesirable organism, pest of a cultivated plant)
  • The auxiliary (different organism, most often a parasite, a predator or a pathogen of the first)

This process allows us to avoid use of chemicals and to go for phyto treatments only in case of absolute necessity.

 

Chemical

Use of plant protection products (pesticides, weed killers, fungicides, insecticides, rodenticides, molluscicides …) in a limited way when there is no other effective means of control. Beyond all health considerations, treatment with chemicals and very expensive, unlike other means.

Allelopathy

Allelopathy is a horticultural technique consisting in associating, within the same cultures, plants that interfere with the development of “pests” and which are used as insecticides, anti-fungal or anti-pathogens.

Our growers grow strips of dill, fennel, beans, maize, tephrosia, tagetes lucida alternately fruit and vegetable plantations.

Some allelopathic plants are eaten by parasites and poison them.

Calendula_officinalis-Pacific-WEB

On the other hand, their inhibitory substances reduce or prevent the growth of weeds harmful to plantations.

The aromatic plants diffuse odors masking the smell of the plants appreciated by the parasites and thus make them impossible to find.

Some still serve as bait or lures to insects away from cultivated plants. In this case, when the “trap plant” is covered with parasites, it is treated only and this eliminates all associated parasites.

Entomophagous insects

Our growers practice the breeding of entomophagous insects (insects that feed on other insects), particularly dygliphus (parasitoid hymenopteran active against the leafminer).

These insects are used as natural agents for destroying pests.

Mechanism: The Dygliphus lays an egg near the leafminer maggot. The larva from the egg will puncture the maggot and cause its death.