Pest Identification and Integrated Pest Management
This domain tests pest identification and Integrated Pest Management (IPM): scouting, thresholds, life cycles, natural enemies, and choosing controls in the right order. The exam expects you to distinguish pests from beneficials and to justify an intervention rather than spray on a calendar.
Core rules
- Identify the pest to species where possible, and confirm the damaging stage. Aphids, whiteflies, thrips, and mites need different controls.
- Scout representative plants in a W or zig-zag pattern; record pest numbers, beneficials, plant stage, and weather.
- Use an action threshold for that crop and pest. Below threshold, use monitoring and cultural controls; above threshold, choose the least disruptive effective option.
- IPM hierarchy: cultural, mechanical/physical, biological, then selective chemical. Conserve predators and parasitoids; avoid broad-spectrum products when beneficials are active.
Worked example
In pepper, you scout 10 plants and find 3 with more than 10 aphids, giving 30% infested plants against a 20% threshold. Lady beetles are present. The reasoned action is not a broad-spectrum pyrethroid. First use insecticidal soap or a selective aphicide, keep the beneficials, and re-scout in 3 days. The threshold is exceeded, so some control is justified, but the beneficial population changes product choice.
Traps
Spraying by calendar; treating lady beetle larvae as pests; using a threshold from another crop; and choosing a product that kills parasitoids.