Pest Control
Different approaches to pest control are equally notable. In chemical farming, a specific insecticide may be applied to quickly kill off a particular insect pest (animal). Chemical controls can dramatically reduce pest populations for the short term, yet by unavoidably killing (or starving) natural predator insects and animals, cause an ultimate increase in the pest population. Repeated use of insecticides and herbicides and other pesticides also encourages rapid natural selection of resistant insects, plants and other organisms, necessitating increased use, or requiring new, more powerful controls.
In contrast, organic farming tends to tolerate some pest populations while taking a longer-term approach. Organic pest control involves the cumulative effect of many techniques, including:
- allowing for an acceptable level of pest damage;
- encouraging predatory beneficial insects to control pests;
- encouraging beneficial microorganisms and insects; this by serving them nursery plants and/or an alternative habitat, usually in a form of a shelterbelt, hedgerow, or beetle bank
- careful crop selection, choosing disease-resistant varieties
- planting companion crops that discourage or divert pests;
- using row covers to protect crops during pest migration periods;
- using pest regulating plants and biologic pesticides and herbicides
- using no-till farming, and no-till farming techniques as false seedbeds
- rotating crops to different locations from year to year to interrupt pest reproduction cycles;
- Using insect traps to monitor and control insect populations.
Each of these techniques also provides other benefits—soil protection and improvement, fertilization, pollination, water conservation, season extension, etc.—and these benefits are both complementary and cumulative in overall effect on farm health. Effective organic pest control requires a thorough understanding of pest life cycles and interactions.
Organic pest control is similar to integrated pest management in some respects.
Read more about this topic: Organic Farming Methods
Famous quotes containing the words pest and/or control:
“The pest of society is egotists. There are dull and bright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. ‘Tis a disease that, like influenza, falls on all constitutions.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Frank Pittman (20th century)