Sustainable Pest Management

Pests happen. Sometimes you can overlook them but other times you need to control them to keep your plants healthy. This class will explore sustainable, integrated methods to reduce pest pressure in your yard as well as how to control insect pest and plant disease outbreaks when necessary. Methods covered include creating habitat for beneficial insects, maximizing your plants’ ability to resist pests, and use of natural and synthetic pest control products.

Review the slides from this class

Integrated pest management (IPM) involves using many practices to minimize and manage pest problems. Learn more about IPM from these Extension websites:

• Integrated pest management for home vegetable gardens (Texas)
• Landscape IPM (Texas):
• Learn more about beneficial insect species and creating habitat from NCSU’s Biological Control Information Center
• For great pictures of beneficial insects visit the Growing Small Farms website
• Stay up to date on latest pests outbreaks in NC with the ECO IPM Blog

Learn more about specific active ingredients found in natural and synthetic pesticides from these online databases:

• U.C. Davis – This one is a great quick reference to potential hazards to water quality, beneficial insects, bees, humans and mammals
• National Pesticide Information Center – This one provides more detailed information on short and long impacts on humans and the environment
• Missouri Botanical Garden – This one includes a list of product brand names in which each active ingredient is found

Learn more about natural and less toxic pesticides and the pests they control from these Extension fact sheets:

• Less toxic insecticides (Clemson)
• Natural products for managing garden and landscape pests (Florida)

For detailed information on deer management, deer repellents and IPM for ticks, see these Extension resources:

• Tick integrated pest management (Missouri)
• Ticks and tick borne diseases (NC)
• Overview and cost analysis of deer repellents (Alabama)
• Using deer repellents (Maryland)
• Controlling deer damage – includes fencing diagrams (Missouri)
• Reducing deer damage at home and on the farm (Clemson)
• Wildlife damage management – Deer

We did not talk about fire ants during the course but I have posted resources on fire ant management online

Use Extension Search to find research based information from Cooperative Extension systems across the U.S.

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