With a growing percentage of cultivation systems without chemical-synthetic plant protection (ecological and/or NOcsPS) resistant crop varieties with long-lasting effects against pests will become even more important. In addition, the increase in arable land applying these systems can lead to a higher potential for pathogen developments due to lower input of synthetic chemical pesticides (csPSM), although an opposite effect of individual pathogens is possible, if their antagonists (beneficial insects) benefit from better development opportunities (see i.a. Poehling and Verreet, 2013 or Tan, 2015).

Furthermore, it can be expected that future possibilities of chemical plant protection in conventional cropping systems will decrease due to a declining variety of active ingredients (see, inter alia, UBA, 2018 or EU, 2018).

A concept will be developed for targeted collective action with respect to preservation of crop variety resistance, active ingredient efficacy and stability of crop yields. Farmers are expected to optimize both spatially and temporally the preservation of efficacy of active ingredients and crop varieties against pests as well as the preservation of crop yield stability by seasonal coordination of active ingredient application, suitable cultivation planning and selection of crop varieties.

In order to design individual scenarios, this concept will be developed by inductive and deductive approaches, e.g. game-theoretical modeling as well as inductively with field studies by collaborating farmers. The latter will be based on full cost analyses for various branches of farming, combined with yield prognoses on changed effectiveness of active components and cultivar resistance towards pathogens in various crop rotations and cultivation combinations.

At last, inductive and deductive approaches with derivation of recommendations for practical implementation (farmers, consulting, politics) will be consolidated. At the beginning of the project, networking within all NOcsPS l sub-projects is important because the experiences gained from individual WPs are an essential part of negotiation solutions to be aimed for. These include e.g. disease gradients depending on crop variety selection or cultivation measures, crop qualities, ecological effects or even individual product price expectations and risk attitudes. However, consumer willingness to pay for products of individual cultivation systems as well as identified implementation and realization barriers (of NOcsPS) are also relevant.

Regional added value of voluntary collective agreements compared to conventional and organic farming and NOcsPS cultivation systems will be identified.

In each case, possibilities are investigated whether and to what extent collectively coordinated actions in applying active components, crop variety selection and cultivation measures will represent an efficient crop resistance and yield management depending on spatiotemporal dynamics.