Gardening for Food & Fun 2014 Pest Control Decisions For Your Vegetable Garden Jeff White University of Illinois Extension Winnebago County Master Gardener Gardening for Food and Fun 03/01/2014
What Is This Program About? Getting you thinking about this subject and giving you the tools to figure out what you want to do in your garden Define pest control Recognize and Diagnose problems How to evaluate resources and eliminate bad advice We ll talk about what your choices are with controlling pests IPM - a decision making process that might help you
What Is This Program About? Your responsibilities Organic Gardening versus Non Organic methods Chemicals The safety of you and your family while using chemicals Getting help Additional resources available to you
Good Bug Bad Bug Ok, before the room empties I won t be showing you 2,000 photos of bugs Know the limits of your knowledge Use your resources Don t assume every bug is bad You need some bugs in your garden You can t wipe out every bug
What Are Pests Anything that does damage You can t count the number of veggies and flowers you ve lost to them Anything you don t want in your garden, Neighbors? You ve tried about everything to stop them You ve spent untold dollars on remedies Maybe you just got to live with them?
The Most Destructive Pests in My Garden
Prevention First Steps First
First Steps First The Garden You need a healthy garden Nature always weeds out the weakest in the herd Every garden must have good exposure to sunlight. Without sun nothing happens You must have good drainage Semi protected Soil must be the correct PH and fertility for your plants
First Steps First Your Plants Disease resistant plants Some plants are a lot more susceptible to pests. Think leafy Monitoring your garden. You can t do it from the couch. Don t let them get ahead of you Pests can be tricked or prevented You can control your garden
Diagnosis Ok, Do You Have Pests, or a Disease? What Now
Diagnosis What plant(s) are affected What is the damage you see and the amount What part of the plant is involved Leaf Fruit Unseen Do you see any pests, what are they Disease or critter How long have the symptoms been observed
Choices Integrated Pest Management What Do You Do Now?
What is IPM A decision matrix to help you choose your methods of pest control It doesn t eliminate pesticides but puts them in an order It lets you choose your method of control, cultural, physical, mechanical, chemical or biological It emphasizes an environmentally sound pest management program
The Decision Matrix The first choice Do nothing You make these decisions every day A little damage Do nothing A lot of damage or damage to important crops or plantings What are your personal limits What are you comfortable with or willing to put up with What are your plants limits Other concerns Pets, Bees, Children
The Decision Matrix Treatment Know your pest Timing, are they at the end of their life cycle or just beginning How heavy is the infestation Can you do anything about it Treatment choices Physical Cultural Organic Chemicals
Cultural Controls Choosing plants The first step is at the nursery or your starter plants for either pests or disease If they re already in trouble pass them over. You ve got enough problems don t bring any more to your garden You see pests on them Holes already in the leaves Bad roots Drooping or damaged plants Choose your gardening methods
Cultural Controls After you have healthy plants Plant at the right time Mulch - again don t bring home problems, clean it up Garden cloth break the breeding and disease cycles Proper watering, about an 1 per week usually Proper fertilizing Pruning as required Pests have life cycles Vary your planting times Use row covers for susceptible plants Try companion planting
Cultural Controls Crop Rotation The first rule is rotate, rotate, rotate Especially true for diseases Why we rotate To allow the soil to restore To put plants that add certain nutrients back into the soil where they will do the most good Control disease and insects Leave an area fallow if you have the room Clean your beds every fall. Remove all plants, leaves and debris. They provide nesting areas
Plants Grouped By Family Squash Mustard Tomato Beet Legumes Squash Broccoli Tomatoes Beets Beans Cucumber Brussel Sprouts Eggplants Spinach Peas Pumpkins Cabbage Peppers Chard Melons Cauliflower Potatoes Kohlrabi Mustard Radishes Kale Turnips Onion Onions Leeks Scallions Garlic Shallots Carrot Carrots Dill Parsnips Parsley
Organic Controls Low Tech Picking bugs off your plants Picking off diseased leaves Washing bugs off with a sprayer for an infested plant works well especially with aphids and mites Removing infested leaves or branches Certain poultry Keep your garden weeded Stopping the use of pesticides
Organic Controls Bed coverings Vacuum pests and eggs Garden Cloth, bugs lay eggs in your soil Fencing for deer, raccoons, possums, rabbits, or other critters of the night Netting Flashers or streamers for birds
Organic Controls The use of barriers Tin cans or cardboard tubes around young plants Row covers Wire mesh below your plants or around the roots like a basket Copper tape Insect traps, in your neighbor s yard
Organic Controls Biological Controls slow acting Encouraging or buying natural predators for your garden Pathogens Bacteria Fungi Nematodes Attracting Birds Bats Toads, frogs
Organic Controls Organic Kaolin spray, a dry powdered clay Insecticidal soap Neem oil for both insects and fungal issues Diatomaceous earth BTK (Bacillus thuringiensis) bacterial parasite caterpillars BTSD (Bacillus thuringiensis) San Diego variety Beetles
Organic Controls Fungal Issues Baking soda Bacillus subtilis Neem oil
Chemical Controls Chemicals are non selective You can t take misapplications back Can cause permanent damage to the environment including you Two basic kinds Contact pesticides Kill on contact Systematic pesticides Go into the plant and kill those pests eating that plant All chemicals have a residual life I recommend chemicals as a last resort
Chemical Controls Application Follow the label instructions Safety requirements Application times or frequency requirements Mix according to directions Use only as directed and on those plants or pests listed Read the whole label The chemical you want to use may kill the plants or a surrounding plant Compounds change from year to year AND so do the directions for use
Chemical Controls Safety Read the dang labels every time Misapplications Drift, you could be eating this stuff vapor drift Particle drift Movement by water, running and leaching Spills The phone number on the label Any issues bring the product to the hospital with you
Chemical Controls For your safety Read the label Mix properly and don t mix different chemicals Wear proper safety equipment Wash it separately after using Know the exposure symptoms and get emergency care if you need it Keep the kids and pets away while applying and until safe Store properly Dispose of properly
HELP Any issues you can t handle call the Master Gardner hotline for your county. We ll help you out We give classes during the growing season Use the Extension website. There is a lot of information and links you can use. http://web.extension.illinois.edu/ your county
About Reference Material You can t get away without some reference materials You can waste a lot of money if you re not careful Make sure it is what you need Make sure it covers our zone Make sure it covers your interests and beliefs Be cheap, used bookstores or used on-line
About Reference Material BE CHEAP With books look at them first then shop price Check books out of the library Sit down and look at them at the bookstore Some books can be purchased used but be careful of the publishing date Parts of some books may be published in magazines. Do a search for the author
Magazines Organic Gardening Mother Earth News Hobby Farms Urban Farm Don t subscribe because of a pretty photo on the cover. Pick up a few issues first and make sure the print lives up to the photo and that their values are the same as yours
Books To Take A Look At GARDENING Step by Step Organic Vegetable Gardening Shepherd Ogden (Samuel R. Ogden 1972) Square Foot Gardening Mel Bartholomew Rodale s Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening Fern Marshall Bradley, Barbara W. Ellis, and Ellen Phillips
Books To Take A Look At Gardening Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest Available at your extension office The Vegetable Gardener s Bible Edward C. Smith
Books To Take A Look At INSECT AND DISEASE CONTROL The Organic Gardener s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control Barbara W. Ellis and Fern Marshall Bradley Good Bug, Bad Bug Jessica Walliser What s Wrong With My Vegetable Garden David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth What s Wrong With My Plant David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth
Websites Local Extension http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/your county UIUC http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/vegguide/ Vegetable gardening information for Illinois http://vegipm.tamu.edu/imageindex.html Vegetable pest identification guide Other http://www.pollinator.org/ Pollinator information
RESOURCES HortAnswers: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/hortanswers/ Midwest Fruit and Vegetable Jim Fizzell Common Vegetable Problems: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/vegproblems/ The Bug Review: http://urbanext.illinois.edu/bugreview/ Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest