Landscape Pests, Diseases, and Integrated Pest Management
What this domain tests
This domain tests pest and disease identification in Florida landscapes, the legal boundaries of who may apply what, and the IPM sequence: identify, monitor, set a threshold, combine tactics, and evaluate.
Regulation
- Chapter 482, F.S., and Rule 5E-14, F.A.C., govern application for hire. Certified applicator categories include Ornamental and Turf, Lawn and Ornamental, Natural Areas, Right-of-Way, and Aquatic.
- The Limited Commercial Landscape Maintenance certificate covers plant beds only, caution-label products, up to 3 gallons of dilute solution per application, and never turf.
- The label is the law: rate, site, PPE, restricted-entry interval, and preharvest interval all bind you, and each application must be recorded.
IPM in sequence
- Identify first, scout on a schedule, act only at a threshold, then combine cultural, mechanical, biological, and chemical tactics and evaluate the result.
- Florida staples: chinch bug and tropical sod webworm in St. Augustinegrass; mole crickets and white grubs in bahiagrass and Bermuda; large patch in cool weather; take-all root rot in wet, stressed lawns; gray leaf spot in humid summer.
- Palms: lethal yellowing, to which cabbage palm is resistant; Texas Phoenix palm decline; ganoderma butt rot; Fusarium wilt of queen palm; cycad aulacaspis scale.
- Rotate fungicide FRAC groups and insecticide IRAC groups to slow resistance, and never spray open blooms while bees forage.
Worked example
An irrigated St. Augustine lawn shows irregular yellow-to-brown patches that follow the mower and look like drought. Rather than watering more, part the grass at the edge of a yellow patch and look for tiny black-and-white nymphs at the stolon bases, or float a coffee-can core. Finding roughly 20-25 chinch bug nymphs per square foot meets the action threshold. The response combines cultural work (reduce thatch, mow at 3.5-4 inches, cut excess nitrogen, correct irrigation) with a labeled targeted insecticide. Below threshold, cultural work alone is the correct answer.
Traps
- Treating a symptom without identifying the cause; drought, take-all, and chinch bug look alike from a distance.
- Using a fungicide against a bacterial or abiotic problem.
- Calendar spraying instead of scouting to thresholds.
- Applying a restricted-use product without the proper certified license.
- Spraying mid-day on blooming plants and killing pollinators.