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[intro music]
Jim Dill: Hi, I'm Jim Dill. I'm the pest management specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative
Extension out of Orono, Maine. Today I'd like to talk to you briefly about Integrated Pest
Management, or IPM as it's commonly known.
IPM is basically taking everything that you can think of that will interfere with a pest's
lifecycle to help to reduce or suppress those individuals that are doing the harm. It may
be anywhere from planting resistant varieties, to cultivation, sanitation, which is a critical
one. And of course, one of the big things that we want to talk about is pesticides.
Pesticides are used in an organic system. We will take and put these together in a system
that actually takes and does everything that we can to control or mitigate a pest population.
Once we have done that, we will move on to other pests throughout the field, or whatever
we have to do.
Record keeping is also a very important part of pest management. That way, keeping records
from year to year will help you with what you need to do in following years.
What we're trying to do is put into play various mechanisms that are economically feasible.
A lot of times we can control a pest by putting in some elaborate system which could cost
hundreds and hundreds of dollars per acre, which doesn't do us any good. So we're trying
to make sure that whatever we do is economically sound.
And as well as economically sound, we want to make sure that it's environmentally sound.
Whatever we do, we try to have a minimum amount of impact on the environment.
[outro music]