Therefore, integral weed management is present tense, real-time, and integrates many complex components with multiple relationships and interactive consequences. Pest management begins with personal knowledge of pests and their relationships with crops, fields, wind directions and weather, rotations, and production practices. Pest thresholds are derived from these factors and combined with the demands of managing a dynamic farming system. Numerous decisions are required daily. Its the mix of these decisions that make integral pest management a complex and dynamic process.
Prevention means adopting sanitary cultural practices and avoiding the occurance of a pest.
Sanitation means purchasing clean seed or planting stock, washing or cleaning equipment, screening irrigation water, and eliminat ing new pest infestations before they spread or become established. Repeated use of the same or similar cultural practice such as tilling or applying a particular group of pesticides results in a shift to resistant species or biotypes. Pest shifts can b e prevented by monitoring fields and changing or combining a wide variety of control practices. Many growers prevent weed seed production, thereby eliminating or reducing the weed seed bank and potential infestations when sensitive crops or crops lacking an array of weed suppression practices are planted in rotation. Control or management practices are based on knowledge of yearly pest occurance and on monitoring and scouting of existing pests prior to treatment.