Intergrated Pest Management: A New Dog with a Few Old Tricks

(Page 5 of 5)

July/August 1978
By the Mother Earth News editors 
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[5] Scout your own land. Spot potential problems before they happen!

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[6] Learn to live with low levels of pest damage. Apply controls only to prevent serious outbreaks.

[7] Build traps to catch earwigs, snails, and other pests. (See MOTHER NO. 48, page 180, for help with rodents.) Kits for trapping various kinds of insects-includ. ing coddling moths, peachtree borers, cabbage loopers, and tufted applebud moths-are available for $15.50 from Zoecon, 975 California Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304. Each kit includes three traps and an instruction booklet.

[8] Use biological pest controls where possible. Bacillus thuringiensis (for leafeating caterpillars) and Bacillus popillae (which can cut the population of Japanese beetles dramatically) are widely available at local nurseries. If predatory insects such as ladybugs, lacewing larvae, and praying mantises will help, see MOTHER NO. 51, page 88 for a list of suppliers.

[9] Experiment with safe, homemade pesticides. Most books on organic gardening contain several recipes.

[10] If you must spray, choose only nonpersistent pesticides such as pyrethrum and rotenone. Then use as little as possible. Avoid concoctions that promise to kill every bug in your garden: They'll zap your beneficial insects too!

[11] If you have a large enough farm to make the cost of engaging professional consultants worthwhile, contact your County Extension Agent for details. If he can't or won't help, get in touch with the Agricultural Extension Department at the nearest state land-grant university.

So there you have it! Eleven easy steps for becoming a backyard integrated pest manager. Actually, IPM is pretty much like plain old organic gardening at this level . . . or any level for that matter! But then, what the agribiz farmers don't know won't hurt 'em. As long as we somehow reduce the 1.5 billion pounds of chemical pesticides sold each year in this country, one name's as good as another.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY USDA

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