Increasing societal pressure due to e.g. the ongoing biodiversity loss has led the European agricultural sector to embark on a transition process towards low-pesticide agriculture. In Switzerland, public policy efforts to reduce chemical crop protection are reflected in the number of agri-environmental schemes (AES) that address this issue. The AES promote, first, the further development of alternative crop protection (CP) methods and second, farmers’ adoption of these using financial incentives. Studies on farmers’ behaviour change in this respect usually focus on either individual or structural aspects and neglect the interplay of these. In this paper, we conceptualise CP within a social practice theory (SPT) perspective. In applying SPT to farmers’ CP, practices as routinized activities instead of actors become the principal units of analysis. The aim of the paper is to identify the different variants of CP practices on Swiss farms and to analyse how their elements (meanings, competencies, materials) are connected. The paper is based on a literature review and on semi-structured interviews among farmers and experts. This allows us to perform a microanalysis of farmers’ practices. Our preliminary results suggest that five types of CP practices can be described along the three elements. These were named according to the main logic of each variant and include: 1) “Old school” – maximizing yields, clean fields, 2) Market-oriented, pragmatic CP), 3) Cost and workload minimizing CP, 4) Outsourcing CP to contractors, and 5) Agroecology, regenerative cultivation. The results inform a framework for further research and may be relevant for the advancement towards more effective Swiss agri-environmental policy.