Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Strategies
Created | Updated Feb 9, 2008
Integrated Pest Management is a horticultural maintenance strategy intended to control insect pests and disease; stressing cultural practices, plant selection, and natural predation; and minimizing dependence on chemical pesticides. A common example is the use of introduced populations of predatory insects (e.g Mantids) to control garden pest insects. Cultural practices include pruning to remove egg masses and diseased tissue and the removal of litter, both of which interupt pest reproductive cycles. Key to successful IPM is understanding the relationship of environmental indicators (e.g. bud break, blooming, or germination of specific plants in the local environment) to the lifecycles of specific pests. As spring unfolds, the observant gardener will have noticed the increasing number of bottles littering his or her shrub borders and flower beds. This should be taken as an indication that the ambulatory period in the life of Homo sapiens non-sapiens var.'Lager Lout' has begun. Lager louts will, by now, have emerged from the dark recesses in which they spend the winter and begun to crawl about in search of beer. The tradional control methods of hand picking or laying poison bait are relatively ineffective and may result in the loss of other, less damaging species. The Integrated Pest Management strategy in this case, while possibly employing one or more of the above, together with physical traps and barriers, should concentrate on the removal of all human habitation from the vicinity of the garden; and the destruction of schools and other cold, dark shelters nearby. The introduction of preditors, while probably effective, may not be cost efficient.
