Integrated Pest Management

Definition

A decision-making framework for pest control that combines multiple complementary tactics—biological control, cultural practices, habitat manipulation, host-plant resistance, and targeted chemical applications—to maintain pest populations below economically damaging levels while minimizing environmental and human health risks. IPM emphasizes monitoring-based thresholds, conservation of natural enemies, and selective intervention rather than prophylactic pesticide use.

Etymology

From Latin 'integrare' (to make whole, renew) + pest + management; coined in the 1960s–1970s to describe ecologically grounded alternatives to calendar-based pesticide applications.

Example

In greenhouse vegetable production, IPM for whitefly (Aleyrodidae) combines yellow sticky traps for monitoring, releases of the parasitoid wasp Encarsia formosa, removal of infested plant debris, and spot applications of insecticidal soaps only when established action thresholds are exceeded.

Synonyms

• IPM
• integrated pest control

Related Terms

• Biological control
• action threshold
• Economic injury level
• natural enemy
• pesticide resistance
• insecticide-induced resurgence
• Conservation biological control
• cultural control

Usage Notes

IPM is not synonymous with 'organic' or 'no-spray' agriculture; it explicitly permits synthetic pesticides when justified by monitoring data. The term is sometimes misused to describe any reduced-pesticide program without the requisite integration of multiple tactics or threshold-based decision making. Contrast with conventional calendar spraying and with organic agriculture, which prohibits synthetic inputs regardless of pest pressure.