How to Develop an Integrated Pest Management Strategy

You own your forest land for one or more reasons: for recreational use, for wildlife production, for timber sales, for increased land values, or for other personal purposes. These reasons establish your objectives for owning your woodland.

You can fulfill these objectives with wise forest management. Planting, thinning and harvesting are all aspects of forest management. Pest control is also an important part of managing your property. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a process of evaluating your ownership objectives and your forest's conditions to produce a pest management strategy that is tailored to your needs.

When you encounter a pest problem, your first goal is to establish a pest damage "threshold level." A threshold level is the maximum amount of damage that you will accept before using pest control.

Consider the following factors when you establish a threshold level:

1. Your ownership objectives.
2. The type of pest and its potential to do damage.
3. The value and condition of your stand.
4. The cost of pest damage versus the cost of pest control.
5. The environmental impact of pest damage and control.

Once you have established a threshold level, determine whether or not pest control is necessary. If you don't expect pest damage to exceed the threshold level, no control is necessary. If the damage or the expected damage exceeds the threshold level, then chose one or more pest control alternatives to reduce the damage to an acceptable level.

IPM involves both long-term and short-term management practices. Long-term pest management prevents or reduces the risk of pest damage in the future, both for current and future stands. Short-term pest management tackles the problem of existing pest problems.

Long-term management practices that reduce pest damage risk:

• Plant the tree species that will be the most successful on your site, and time your planting to avoid some pests such as white grubs. Each tree species grows best under specific soil and landscape conditions. Furthermore, some sites provide an ideal environment for specific pests. Don't plant susceptible pine species on these sites.
• Promote early crown closure by planting 800 or more trees per acre and protecting seedlings from weed competition and rodent damage. Closed stands are far less susceptible to many pests than open stands.
• Thin and harvest wisely. Maintaining a proper stocking level is important health care for your trees. And healthy trees are more resistant to pests than weak trees.

Short-term pest control alternatives for existing pest problems:

• No control. Accept pest damage if you don't expect it to exceed this threshold level.
• Mechanical control. Physically remove the pest. Mechanical control alternatives range from picking insects off trees to removing alternate hosts to cutting down heavily infested or infected trees.
• Biological control. Allow a pest's natural enemies (parasites, predators and diseases) to control the pest. Bacterial sprays and viruses are available to control some pests. Most importantly, avoid killing the organisms that naturally control pest problems.
• Chemical control. Apply a chemical pesticide when other control methods cannot reduce pest damage to an acceptable level. The cost of spraying may be impractical when you consider the value of the stand and the pesticide's environmental impact. In addition, pesticides often kill your pest's natural enemies.

Forest Health Protection