Using IPM in your commercial fruit orchard

     Integrated Pest Management is a concept of managing crop pests that encourages using a variety of control measures.  Some of the control measures are preventative measures which include sanitation, crop rotation and use of resistant varieties.  There are also measures refered to as rescue treatments.  These may include biological or chemical control measures.  Rescue treatments are normally used only when a "threshold" has been reached.  A threshold is a point where researchers have determined that the costs of applying a rescue treatment are less than the cost in damage caused by the pest.

     The amount of pest pressure present can be determined in a number of ways.  There are a variety of traps that can be use for monitoring a variety of pests.  The picture to the left shows a multipher style pheromone trap that can be used for monitoring red banded leaf-rollers, codling moths, peach tree borers and Oriental fruit moths, as well as many other pests.  Wing traps are another type of pheromone trap  used in many orchards for monitoring purposes, especially spotted tentiform leafminer.  The grids on wing trap bottoms can make it easier estimating the number of  insects in the trap (numbers can be in the thousands each week).  As useful as traps are, they can not completely take the place of direct observation of the crop.  Scouting the canopy of the tree is important for determining the density of aphid, mite, leafhopper and curculio populations.

  Once a threshold has been exceeded, there are a number of control measures that are available for reducing the pest pressure.  The release of beneficial insects (such as the parasitic wasp at the right) is one such option.  Pheromones can also be used to interefere with mating of insects and reduce viable egg production.  Chemical controls are also an option.  When using chemical controls, it is a good idea to use those that are less likely to reduce the numbers of beneficial insects that are resident within your orchard. 

     A more in depth discussion of how to implement IPM into your growing practices can be found in the Midwest Small Fruit Pest Management Handbook, found on line at http://ohioline.osu.edu/b861/pdf/ch01.pdf