Help with controlling pests in your garden
Today when we talk about pest control in the garden we should use a method called integrated pest management or IPM.
Integrated Pest Management is a management system developed for reducing the amount of chemical pesticides that are used to control pests. Chemical pesticides include organic and inorganic forms. Integrated Pest Management has been required in Agriculture production for years.
The first step of IPM is prevention. Prevention does not mean applying pesticides on a weekly basis to prevent pests. It means keeping pests out of the country, state or region.
A good example of prevention is the agricultural inspection at state lines or airports to prevent exotic insects from entering California. Many of you have got ready to purchase a plant online or from a catalog and find out it cannot be shipped to California, probably due to laws preventing certain products from entering California because they may contain plant diseases that we are trying to prevent. With a little research you will find many of our large-scale pest problems start around ports of call (like LAX), including Mediterranean, Oriental and Mexican fruit flies.
The second step of IPM is improved cultural practices, and this is where you become involved in your landscape. It is still a prevention method but accomplished on a smaller scale. Cultural practices could include making sure you or your gardener clean their lawn mower before mowing your lawn. This can prevent diseases or weeds from being introduced into your yard from yards that were mowed before yours. Disinfecting your shears before pruning your shrubs can prevent some diseases. Make sure you buy weed free manures or other organic amendments before applying to your garden.
A very important cultural practice is to reduce any host of the problem pest. For example, if you are growing apples, maybe you should not have roses, pyracantha, photinas or ornamental pears in your landscape. This is because the same diseases and insects attack all of these plants, and if your pyracantha harbors the disease, it can get into your apples.
Make sure that you remove any weeds, trash or diseased material as soon as possible from the garden or landscape. Anything that you can think of to prevent weeds, disease, and insects from being brought into your landscape is an important part of IPM.
The biggest cultural practice is to plant your vegetables or landscape plants in the best conditions for the plants. Roses, for example, when planted in a shady location and/or near a lawn, are going to be infected with powdery mildew. You can spray a fungicide, but it will never control the mildew. If any plant is stressed from growing in the wrong conditions (too much water, not enough water, too much sun, not enough sun, too much fertilizer, not enough fertilizer, poor soil), the plant is more susceptible to insects and diseases. Proper cultural practices can eliminate the need for pesticides.