Pruning, for example, increases fruit size and quality, but also influences pest management many months later. Numerous factors and practices influence pests, but become integral decisions within the total orchard management system. In contrast, primary decisions such as mowing orchard floor vegetation or controlling certain weeds require specific pest prevention and control actions. People often associate these control practices as the only method used to suppress or manage pests. Integral pest managment represents the entire pest and crop management system integrated within an agroecological region.
Prevention means adopting sanitary cultural practices and avoiding the occurance of a pest.
Sanitation means purchasing pest-free planting stock, washing or cleaning equipment, screening irrigation water, and eliminating new pest infestations before they spread. Repeated use of the same or similar cultural practice such as mowing or application of a particular group of pesticides results in a shift to resistant species or biotypes. Pest shifts can be prevented by monitoring your crop and changing or co mbining a wide variety of control practices. See weed prevention for more information. Control practices are based on knowledge of annual pest occurance or on monitoring and scouting of existing pests prior to treatment.