Pests in Agriculture, Forest, and Range
Agriculture
Forest
Range
Click on the pictures above for additional information
- Prevention — use pest-free plant stock and materials, remove insect pests before they can lay eggs, and inspect plants regularly so you can remove insect pests before they reproduce.
- Cultural controls — practices such as proper planting times and rates, using companion crops, and managing fertilization and irrigation. Other practices include rotating crops and using cover or trap crops. Good sanitation will help reduce insect pests. In greenhouses, changing the environment to discourage insect pests (by controlling temperature, light or humidity) is another cultural control method.
- Biological controls — using natural enemies (predators, parasites, pathogens and competitors). Learn more from the University of California. Colorado Department of Agriculture Insectary offers the citizens of Colorado a biological control alternative to the use of chemicals for control of specific pests.
- Mechanical and physical controls — hand-picking insects, use of row covers and sticky traps, and disrupting the soil to disrupt insect life cycles.
- Chemical controls — use of insecticides to control an insect pest.
IPM Strategies for Forest and Range
- IPM practices help maintain the long-term health and biodiversity of forest ecosystems, including urban forests.Learn about Principles of Forest Pest Management, bugwood.org
- Habitat management, including grazing, prescribed burns, mowing and herbicide applications, can be used control arthropod infestations and protect pollinators.
Beneficial Insects and Arthropods
Conservation of pollinators and beneficial insects (both predators and parasites) is an important aspect of practicing Integrated Pest Management.
Learn more about Beneficial Insects and Other Arthropods.
Learn more about pollinators:
- How can IPM help us save the pollinators? See the videoconference here, from the Northeastern IPM Center.
- How to Farm for Pollinators, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
- Protecting Pollinators: why and how pesticide applicators can help them, Pesticide Task Force of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign
The Driftwatch program helps pesticide applicators and producers to more effectively communicate location information about pesticide sensitive sites (beehives as well as other sites) in order to reduce risk to pollinators and sensitive crops.