Environmental Stewardship
Environmental Stewardship
Integrated Pest Management
Introduction
IPM History
What is IPM?
IPM Basics
IPM is not Organic Agriculture
IPM Adoption
IPM Benefits in the Real World
Syngenta's Commitment to IPM
Precision Ag - A Big Lift for IPM
The Producer is Key to Success
The Future of IPM
IPM Resources on the Web
Stewardship Home
IPM Basics


IPM programs are the crop protection building blocks for creating integrated crop management (ICM) systems. ICM combines proven practices like crop rotations and erosion control with IPM and new crop protection technologies, to enhance and protect the health of farms and rural communities. The use of IPM and ICM are creating a sustainable agriculture that is able to meet the increasing demands for high quality food and fiber production while improving the sustainability of society and the natural environment.

While IPM programs may vary from crop to crop and region to region, they share three basic components - Observation, Prevention and Intervention.

I. OBSERVATION

IPM is information intensive and relies on scouting and monitoring programs for the collection of field level data about key factors such as:
  • Pest populations
  • Disease pressure
  • Weed species
  • Weather conditions and degree-days
  • Pest phenology
  • Crop growth stage
  • Reliance on and preservation of beneficial organisms
IPM uses decision support systems for determining if control measures are necessary and what measures are most appropriate. Among the criteria used are:
  • Economic thresholds
- pest population level that inflicts crop damage greater than the cost of control measure
  • Availability of selective pesticides
  • Action levels

- Because growers will generally want to act before a population reaches the economic threshold, this is the point at which suppression tactics should be applied in order to prevent pest populations from increasing to injurious levels

  • Environmental risk indices (for example, to determine impacts on pollinators)
  • Disease forecasting systems
II. PREVENTION

IPM programs seek to avoid pest damage through practices such as:
  • Judicious use of pesticides that prevent pest infestations
  • Crop rotations
  • Resistance management
  • Disease tolerant or resistant seeds and varieties
  • Use of field sanitation and reduction of pest habitat
III. INTERVENTION

IPM makes use of a wide range of appropriate controls, such as:
  • Chemical controls - use of pesticide applications to prevent damage, suppress pest populations or control damaging pest outbreaks
  • Biological controls - use of predators or parasitoids for suppression or control
  • Cultural controls such as mowing and cultivation
  • Application technologies to efficiently target pesticide application and minimize off-site impacts
  • Biopesticides such as Bt, insect growth regulators or pheromones
  • Biotechnology in the development of pest resistant plant varieties and in the development of more effective controls, such as new strains of Bacillus thurengiensis