Photo courtesy of ubieday at flickr.com.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an environmentally sensitive approach to controlling pest damage to crops, flowers, and other plants. It involves careful monitoring, along with the adoption of several interrelated systems of biological, cultural, and chemical control. While the strategy is used throughout the agricultural and horticultural industries, it’s especially adaptable to organic gardening.

Among other things, it stresses an acceptance of a minimal level of damage without resorting to damaging chemical pesticides; individual plant inspection, where possible; an understanding of the lifecycles and habits of common pests; the use of sticky traps of various colors, designed to capture specific types of pests; and exclusion methods to keep specific pests away from the plants in question. For more information on IPM, click here.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 at 5:00 am and is filed under Gardening Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.