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: click here

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

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: click here
• National Pesticide Information Center – This one provides more detailed information on short and long impacts on humans and the environment: click here
• Missouri Botanical Garden – This one includes a list of product brand names each active ingredient is found in: click here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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