Category: Integrated pest management

Integrated pest management uses observation and creativity, instead of chemicals, to control bugs and pests on your crops, through a wide variety of methods and techniques, such as cultural, biological and structural strategies.
Answering questions about pests will help identify: What are they? In what habitat do they thrive? What are the known organic controls? What do they eat? What eats them? All this will help you become an expert and minimize the damage caused by pests in your crops.
The best thing for pest control is prevention, which is achieved by designing your crop in a way that pests do not thrive, i.e. enough air circulation between plants, keeping soil fertility high, avoiding standing water and debris that creates cesspools of harmful insects and disease. Prevention also involves creating closed-loop ecosystems that create habitat for the “good” bugs, so they can eat the “bad” bugs!
The different methods to manage pests efficiently and permanently can be grouped into biological controls, mechanical and physical controls, chemical controls.