Integrated Pest Management Master Gardener ProgramUniversity of Connecticut

2008

Primary Author: Ana LaGrande

What is a Pest?A pest species is one that interferes with human activities. • Competes with humans, domestic animals or desirable plants

for food or water.• Injures humans, animals, desirable plants, structures or

possessions.• Spreads diseases to humans, domestic animals, wildlife or

desirable plants.• Annoys humans or domestic animals.

A pest can be circumstantial:– Termites in forest are beneficial.– Termites in home are a pest.

Pest or Delicacy?

Southbury 1999

Southbury 2002

Purple Loosestrife Before and After Biological Control

Pretty, yes, but environmentally disruptive.

Photo: Donna Ellis

What is a Pest?

• Aesthetic pests are those whose mere presence is unacceptable.

• Medical pests impact health and cause economic losses that are difficult to measure.

Pest Categories

• Arthropods (insects, mites)

• Plant Pathogens

• Weeds

• Nematodes

• Mollusks

• Vertebrates

Factors That Influence Pest Status

• Pest Organism

• Environment

• Crop / Management system

• Time

Integrated Pest Management

A system that selects the best pest control tactics while minimizing negative outcomes

• Biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties etc.

• Maintains acceptable quality.• Is economical.• Causes the least disruption to the environment.

Integrated Pest Management

IPM integrates all available tools for pest control. Chemicals are only applied when a pest is detected at an economically or aesthetically significant level. Two key components are emphasized: prevention and control by natural enemies.

IPM Tactics

• Cultural

• Mechanical

• Physical

• Resistant Varieties

• Biological Control

• Selective PesticidesPredator mites released to control European red mite in orchards

The “evolution” of growing plants…

Pesticides in the 20th Century

• Early 1900s – inorganic chemicals (copper sulfate, iron sulfate) used to kill plants.

• Insecticide dusts (lead arsenate) widely used in crops such as cotton and apples.

• 1905 - First discovery that resistance to diseases (rust on wheat) is inherited lays foundation for breeding pest-resistant crops.

1926

“The Hartford Park Department used 30 tons or more of lead arsenate in treating the turf in Riverside Park, Bushnell Park, and that portion of Elizabeth Park containing the rose gardens. This treatment kills the Japanese beetle grubs present in the soil and those hatching out from eggs laid in the treated soil.”

From State Entomologist Report, 1936

• 1914 - First report is given of resistance in insects to an insecticide: San Jose scale and lime-sulfur.

• 1930 -1940s - First discovery of organic chemicals that kill plants. 2,4-D used as a selective herbicide.

• 1939 - Paul Mueller discovers insecticidal properties of DDT

• 1946 - First report of insect resistance to new synthetic organic chemical insecticides. Houseflies resistant to DDT observed in Sweden and Denmark.

• 1950s - Resistance to new classes of pesticides start to appear in insect populations.

• 1952- 62 - Establishment of the ‘integrated control concept’.

• Hoskins et al. 1939: seed of the idea of integrated control

“biological and chemical control are considered as supplementary to one another or as the two edges of the same sword…

nature’s own balance provides the major part of the protection that is required for the successful pursuit of agriculture… insecticides should be used so as to interfere with natural control of pests as little as possible…”

• 1961 - The term ‘pest management’ advanced by Geier and Clark.

• 1962 - Rachel Carson publishes ‘Silent Spring’.

• Late 1960s - Resistance to an herbicide is first documented. Also, first report of field resistance to a fungicide.

• 1972 - The term “IPM” formally appears in a message from President Nixon to Congress.

IPM Program Components

• Knowledge Base: key plants, key pests, susceptible locations

• Prevention• Monitoring approaches: visual inspections, traps, degree-days• Decision-making rules: Economic and

aesthetic injury levels, tolerance levels• Intervention• Evaluation

Physical Controls: Mesh-screening in greenhouses

Monitoring: Trapping

• Visual– Yellow, blue, white sticky card traps– Red spheres for apple maggot

• Sticky traps

• Bait traps

• Pitfall traps

• Blacklight traps

Advantages of Monitoring

• Develops a historical record of pests and beneficials.• Provides info to help time control measures properly.• Provides info to help identify non-target impacts.• Provides info to improve or simplify future sampling

programs.• Provides earlier warning to potential pest problems.• Provides feedback about whether pest control

activities are working.

Weather & IPM1. Importance of Weather Data2. Observing Microclimates3. Growing Degree Days uses this equation:

Maximum Temperature + MinimumTemperature -50° F.

2and can be calculated when soil reached 50° F and plants start to grow.

4. Forecasting & Disease Management5. Predictive Pest Outbreak Models

IPM Program Components

• Knowledge Base: key plants, key pests, susceptible locations

• Prevention• Monitoring approaches: visual inspections, traps, degree-days• Decision-making rules: EIL, AIL, tolerance

levels• Intervention• Evaluation

Economic Injury Level

• The level of pest density at which the cost to control the pest is equal to the losses that the pest causes.

Aesthetic Injury Level

The level of pest abundance above which aesthetic or

sociological considerations suggest control measures

should be implemented against the pest.

IPM for Orangestriped Oakworm

• Orangestriped oakworm serious problem in urban forests in Virginia from 1981-1987.

• AIL defined as the lowest amount of defoliation that was tolerated by citizens and the lowest defoliation that would not significantly reduce tree health.

IPM for Orangestriped Oakworm

• A citizen survey revealed tolerance levels and starch analysis determined effect of defoliation on tree health.

• Survey indicated citizens would accept some defoliation and 25% defoliation was the upper tolerance limit.

• Aesthetic threshold: egg mass density that caused a given level of defoliation.

IPM for Orangestriped Oakworm

• Daily scouting and counting of egg masses per 30 cm branch segment.

• Bacillus thuringiensis used on early instars.

• Pesticide volume in 1988 decreased by 80% with a cost savings of 55%.

• Use of Bt conserved other natural enemies of the oakworm.

The 10 Commandments of IPM

1. Monitoring - Forecasting2. Use of thresholds (where they exist)3. Emphasize prevention via cultural methods

vs. treatments4. Record keeping / documentation5. Use least toxic / least environmentally disruptive practices

10 Commandments of IPM cont…

6. Resistance management7. Education of implementers (consumers)8. Use of best management practices for soil

and nutrient management and water use9. BMPs for pest management - comply with

legal requirements, use of appropriate tools, calibrate sprayers, pesticide applicator training, etc.

10. Use a systems approach in applying all of the above!

Use a regular schedule of pesticide spraying

Monitor levels of pests

& use IPM decision making tools

Use selective pesticides

Use cultural controls

& other biologically based tactics

Use pesticide as last resort

Eliminate conventional pesticides:

organic farming

IPM Continuum

IPM Programs in Connecticut

• Vegetable crops• Tree fruit• Small fruit• Field crops• Invasive species• Nursery crops• IPM curriculum• Greenhouse crops

John Wolchesky, Lapsley Orchard, Pomfret

IPM Program Impacts

• Delivered 738 on-site, season-long IPM training programs since 1984.

• Reduced the use of pesticide active ingredients by at least 91 tons.

• 13 vegetable growers (299 acres) participating in the 2004 training saved $184,705 through reduced pesticide use and increased yields.

The Quinnipiac River Watershed Integrated Pest/Crop Management Project

Orchards, vegetables, greenhouses, field corn, turfgrass and nursery/landscaping

Pesticide applications were reduced by 63% (47,612 pounds of pesticide active ingredient)

on 785 acres.

IPM Websitewww.hort.uconn.edu/ipm/