Talking About Green

An environmentally sensitive and effective approach towards pest management is called Integrated Pest Management. These programs use information regarding the life cycles of the pests and their effect on the environment, and hence use pest control in such a way so that there is minimum damage to environment. Integrated Pest Management is an eco-friendly method of doing pest control.

This can be applied for both agricultural and non-agricultural purpose. It is used in places like homes, gardens and office places. It opposes synthetic use of chemicals which are harmful to the environment and are easy tips for green living.

The aims of Integrated Pest Management are reduction in usage of organic pesticides, eco-friendliness to the environment, pest minimal risk in human health and provide safety on consumable food.

An analysis done of pesticides residue can show us the difference between organically and non-organically grown fruits and vegetables.

Integrated Pest Management reduces the overall use of pest control and pesticides. Thus, it takes protective measures and reduces the use of pesticides exposure to the environment.

How is Integrated Pest Management done?
It can be done for any pest problems and is applicable to agricultural as well as non-agricultural settings. The following steps are used to practice IPM.
? Know at what level pests becomes a threat to the economy.
? Use of IPM control methods such as crop rotation, plantation of pest-free rootstock, selection of pest resistant crops etc. so that there is no risk to environment.
? Less risky methods come in these IPM programs.
? Identification of pest.

The following are some of the tools of IPM
? Different crop production practices are used such as crop rotation, plant spacing, harvesting and planting dates etc. which makes the environment less exposed to pest.
? Pest resistance is bred and is used on continuous process.
? Pest and their damage to the crop and environment are monitored.
? Only if the population of pest goes above the control limit, are pesticides used. The use of chemical control method is practiced.