Practice Integrated Pest Management

Pests are organisms that damage or interfere with desirable plants in our gardens and orchards. They may disfigure plants, transmit diseases, and damage crops. A pest can be a vertebrate (bird, rodent, or other mammal), an invertebrate (insect, tick, mite, slug or snail), a nematode, or a pathogen (bacteria, virus, or fungus), or a weed that competes with the desirable plants.

Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties.

Pest control tools are selected and applied in a manner that minimizes risks to human health, beneficial and non-target organisms, and the environment.

Why Choose IPM?

Provides long term-solutions to pest problems
Provides a management system that keeps potential problems from getting out of hand
Gives choices for management that don’t require pesticides
Eliminates unnecessary pesticide use
Supports a healthy garden environment and ecosystem

Practice IPM

Modify habitats to deter pests
Maintain plants with proper care as healthy plants can better tolerate pests
Select plant varieties that are resistant to disease pathogens
Mow and cultivate weeds before they go to seed
Protect and create habitat for natural enemies of pests
Use pesticides as a last resort, and when necessary, select the least toxic products

Additional Information