Introduction

• In protected cultivation, pests and diseases find favourable conditions for their development.
• The control of pests and diseases has been focused on the use of chemicals.
• Biological control is based on the use of natural enemies of the pests and pathogens, to maintain their populations below the ‘economic damage threshold’.
• IPM constitutes a different way of understanding pest and disease control, which tolerates the presence of pests and diseases below an ‘economic damage threshold’ and gives preference to other types of control (biological, cultural, genetic) rather than to chemical control, which is used only as a last resort.
• This allows for a notable decrease in phytosanitary treatments.

Climatic factors directly influence the development of pests and diseases of crops. Therefore, proper greenhouse climate control can help to decrease their development