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Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
The idea behind IPM is to do the least amount of harm to the environment and still reach the level of pest control needed.
How IPM Works
An IPM regime can be quite simple or sophisticated.
An IPM system is designed around six basic components:
Acceptable pest levels: The emphasis is on control, not eradication. IPM holds that wiping out an entire pest population is often impossible, and the attempt can be more costly, environmentally unsafe, and frequently unachievable. IPM programs first work to establish acceptable pest levels, and apply controls if those thresholds are crossed.
Preventive cultural practices: Selecting varieties best for local growing conditions, and maintaining healthy crops, is the first line of defense, together with plant quarantine and 'cultural techniques' such as crop sanitation (e.g. removal of diseased plants to prevent spread of infection).
Monitoring: Regular observation is the cornerstone of IPM. Observation is broken into two steps, first; inspection and second; identification. Visual inspection, insect and spore traps, and other measurement methods and monitoring tools are used to monitor pest levels. Accurate pest identification is critical to a successful IPM program. A thorough knowledge of the behavior and reproductive cycles of target pests is also important. Since insects are cold-blooded, their physical development is dependent on the temperature of their environment. Many insects have had their development cycles modeled in terms of degree days. Monitor the degree days of an environment to determine when is the optimal time for a specific insect's outbreak.
Mechanical controls: Should a pest reach an unacceptable level, mechanical methods are the first options to consider. They include simple hand-picking, erecting insect barriers, using traps, vacuuming, and tillage to disrupt breeding.
Biological controls: natural biological processes and materials can provide control, with minimal environmental impact, and often at low cost. The main focus here is on promoting beneficial insects that eat target pests. Biological insecticides, derived from naturally occurring microorganisms (e.g. Bt, entomopathogenic fungi and entomopathogenic nematodes), also fit in this category.
Chemical controls: Synthetic pesticides are generally only used as required and often only at specific times in a pests life cycle. Many of the newer pesticide groups are derived from plants or naturally occurring substances (e.g. nicotine, pyrethrum and insect juvenile hormone analogues), and further 'biology-based' or 'ecological' techniques are under evaluation.
IPM is applicable to all types of agriculture and sites such as residential and commercial structures, lawn and turf areas, and home and community gardens. Reliance on knowledge, experience, observation, and integration of multiple techniques makes IPM a perfect fit for organic farming (the synthetic chemical option is simply not considered).
1. Proper identification of pest - What is it? Cases of mistaken identity may result in ineffective actions. If plant damage due to over-watering are mistaken for a fungal infection, a spray may be used needlessly and the plant still dies.
2. Learn pest and host life cycle and biology. At the time you see a pest, it may be too late to do much about it except maybe spray with a pesticide. Often, there is another stage of the life cycle that is susceptible to preventative actions. Also, learning what a pest needs to survive allows you to remove these.
3. Monitor or sample environment for pest population - How many are there? Preventative actions must be taken at the correct time if they are to be effective. For this reason, once you have correctly identified the pest, you begin monitoring BEFORE
it becomes a problem. Some of the things you might want to monitor about pest populations include: Is the pest present/absent? What is the distribution - all over or only in certain spots? Is the pest population increasing or decreasing?
4. Establish action threshold (economic, health or aesthetic) - How many are too many? In some cases, a certain number of pests can be tolerated.
5. Choose an appropriate combination of management tactics. For any pest situation, there will be several options to consider. Options include, mechanical or physical control, cultural controls, biological controls and chemical controls. Mechanical or physical controls include picking pests off plants, or using netting or other material to exclude pests such as birds from grapes or rodents from structures. Cultural controls include keeping an area free of conducive conditions by removing or storing waste properly, removing diseased areas of plants properly. Biological controls can be support either through conservation of natural predators or augmentation of natural predators. Augmentative control includes the introduction of naturally occurring predators at either an inundative level. An inundative release would be one that seeks to inundate a site with a pest's predator to impact the pest population. An inoculative release would be a smaller number of pest predators to supplement the natural population and provide ongoing control. Chemical controls would include horticultural oils or the application of pesticides such as insecticides and herbicides. A Green Pest Management IPM program would use pesticides derived from plants, such as botanicals, or other naturally occurring materials.
6. Evaluate results - How did it work? Evaluation is often one of the most important steps. This is the process to review an IPM program and the results it generated. Asking the following questions is useful: Did you actions have the desired effect? Was the pest prevented or managed to your satisfaction? Was the method itself satisfactory? Were there any unintended side effects? What will you do in the future for this pest situation? Understanding the effectiveness of the IPM program allows the site manager to make modifications to the IPM plan prior to pests reaching the action threshold and requiring action again.
If you are unsure of what you are dealing with, bring a sample leaf or branch of your plant to us. We will work with you to identify the problem and the best solution for your particular situation.
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800-279-4505
