- 7 Steps to Integrated Pest Management
Integrated pest management or IPM are long-term strategies and practices that focus on safe approaches to control and eliminate pests through proper plant placement or installing plants in the right location to promote plant resistance to withstand disease and the onslaught of garden insect pests. IPM uses mechanical and biological control, proper cultural practice, and resistant plants to thrive in an environment such as gardens and landscape areas.
These safe practices have been widely accepted and enjoyed providing great results without the use of harmful pesticides, IPM has been around since the 1970s and is still highly recommended to date which makes implementing IPM a must no matter how big or small your garden maintenance project IPM will go to work for you.
How does this all work?
Integrated pest management is vast therefore we will be looking only at some of the basics to show how these methods relate to landscape and gardening and how we can use them to our advantage.
Many years ago when I first heard of these methods and how they worked to control insects and disease within the landscape and gardens, I was very fascinated and wanted to learn as much as I could on how to use these methods to keep insects at a level where they would not cause injury to plant life and also to minimize plant diseases.
IMP shows how to keep the insect population at an acceptable level without the use of chemicals that are harmful to pets and humans. When using integrated pest management the rule is pesticides should only be used when the pest population reaches an unacceptable level where pesticides must be introduced. Even then the less toxic is used first. Also, great safety measures and precautions are taken when using toxic chemicals to not contaminate the air and water table.
Beneficial Insects
Beneficial insects are protected when using IPM because pesticides, especially overuse can cause great harm even killing the good bugs. The responsibility of the good bug is to eliminate the bad bugs or bugs that do damage to garden plants.
Proper Cultural Practices
1. Location
This is a method that is used to reduce or discourage insect infestation. Proper cultural practices mean choosing the right plant for the right location. One reason why plants are susceptible to insects is the wrong location. Many times plants are placed in an area where they will not survive because of the wrong location. What happens then is that plants become stressed.
When plants are stressed they become weak, when this happens insects will take over. Some plants love full sunlight, some partial light, and then others prefer the shade. If we place for example a plant that loves full sunlight in a shaded area that plant will become stressed followed by garden insect issues. Before placing or planting any plant, first know its light requirements.
2. Water Requirements
Plants have different water requirements. Plants are divided into two groups, you have high-maintenance plants that require more water to survive compared to low-maintenance plants that can survive on very little water. Get to know your plant’s water requirements. Also when watering plants remember to water at ground level because plants that have constantly wet leaves are susceptible to disease.
3. Mechanical Control
Pruning Plants
What I want to point out is it is always good to prune diseased wood from plants because if you don’t the disease will spread and not only will plant life be in danger but you may have to use fungicides because the disease may have spread to a point where applying fungicides is the only solution. So before it gets to this point inspect your landscape every week and at the first sign of insects or disease, you can deal with it safely instead of having to take drastic measures.
4. Hand Picking
Handpicking is another method of mechanical control, some pests such as caterpillars, snails, and slugs can be handpicked and placed in a bucket containing water and dish liquid. This will not only get rid of them but you would have avoided using pesticides.
5. Biological Control
Remember what we mentioned a bit earlier there are good bugs and bad bugs, biological control is a method where beneficial insects (good bugs) are used to eliminate the bad bugs that feed on our plants. By having a garden you will attract both types of bugs.
But if you want to increase the good bug population within your landscapes and gardens you can purchase them from your plant nursery or garden center and release them in your garden, this is a safe way to eliminate the bad bugs.
Don’t wait until the bad bug population is so high, because at this point the good bugs will not be able to bring control. The sooner you can give the good bugs a home in your garden will be the right choice.
An example of how this works
Parasitic Wasps are a good example, the parasitic wasp lays its eggs inside the bodies of the bad bugs what happens then is when the egg hatches, it hatches inside of the bad bugs, and the larva then begin to feed on the internal parts of the bad bugs.
By the time the larva reaches maturity, it emerges from the bodies of the bad bugs, at this point, the bad bugs are dead or eliminated and the cycle continues, isn’t that just cool not to mention a safe way to deal with garden pest problems?
6. Resistant Plants
Planting resistant plants is another method to discourage the use of chemicals within the landscape and garden. So if the disease comes back continually, if possible replace those plants with varieties that are resistant to plant disease, this will eliminate the use of chemicals.
7. Inspection
When it comes to IPM, scouting or plant inspection is a must, walk your landscape and garden areas at least two or three times a week if you can, and look for signs that may tell you something is going on with your plants. Whatever you find record it.
Make sure and have a notepad, pen, or pencil and record your findings. Also, it would be good to carry along a magnifying glass for better observation, smartphones are great to record and you can also take pictures if you prefer, so you are now the detective of your landscape and garden.
Reasons for this information
This information will help you to identify the problem and then take the right measures in putting together an action plan. If all of this is new to you then you can contact
your local extension service for more help in identifying and bringing about resolutions. You can also do online research that will be of great help to you, there are many tools that you can find which will help you.
Conclusion
I know this article is somewhat lengthy, there is more than can be said on this topic. This is just to give an idea of what IMP is all about, this is truly a safe approach to garden and landscape maintenance, so give it a try, I am sure you will be pleased with your results.
