Eric shared so much information in his brief 3 hours. He gave us some guiding principles to use when dealing with pest management.
- Avoid the “Red Queen Hypothesis,” i.e. it takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place.
- Avoid the “Pesticide Treadmill,” i.e. constantly using the same pesticides over and over as the insects develop more and more resistance.
- Know and remember the four levels of the IPM Pyramid.
Here are a few more practical take aways:
- Identify and know your pests, their life stages and when pests will actually become intolerable. Use interventions to avoid reaching that point: not before you get there.
- Identification, scouting and monitoring is the basis of IPM.
- Keeping your plants healthy, properly irrigated and fertilized is a form of IPM.
- Pesticides: Caution! Warning! Danger! Read the label.
- Organic pesticides are derived from natural sources and can still cause harm to you and/or the environment.
Eric’s full screen version of his PowerPoint presentation is on the Training Website. Thank goodness – right?
The UC IPM website is a wonderful resource for us and for our clients. |