Ep. 208 IPM: Techniques, Tools, and Tips for a Healthier Garden | #GoodGrowing - Good Growing

Episode Transcript
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Chris (00:06):
Welcome to the Good Growing podcast. I am Chris
Enroth, horticulture educatorwith University of Illinois
Extension coming at you fromMacomb , Illinois, and we have
got a great show for you today.IPM sounds like a setup to a
joke, but I promise it is goingto be gardening related today.
We're gonna go into IPM, andwe'll talk about what that all

(00:29):
means. But you know I'm notdoing this by myself.
I am joined as always everysingle week by horticulture
educator Ken Johnson inJacksonville. Hey, Ken.

Ken (00:37):
Hello, Chris. Do you practice IPM in your garden?

Chris (00:41):
Gah. I yes. I practice all kinds of IPM. Safe IPM.
That's me.
Yeah. I'm a good IPMer.

Ken (00:50):
Good.

Chris (00:55):
People are like just some people probably know what we're
talking about. Right? Someothers are like, oh my gosh.
What's happening? What just whatwhat are they doing right now?
Yeah. Alright. Promise to stickwith us for a little bit, folks.

Ken (01:13):
So before before we get into telling people what IPM
actually is if they don't know.So you did you did send me an
article last week that we shouldprobably talk about about
lightning in a particular wasparticular species of trees in
the South America and how it'sbeneficial.

Chris (01:32):
Yes. In the the tropics of South America, the specific
tree was Dipteryx or Dipteryxolyphera. And it is a particular
tree that grows in therainforest in South South
America. And it's one of thosethat it's like it's like in a

(01:54):
movie, you know, it's one ofthose late blooming stories, you
know, the child, he's sick allthe time, and he just struggles
to to to survive. But then oncethey get into adulthood,
they're, like, strong, andthey're they're tough.
So that is this this particularspecies of tree in that not as
many of these younger treessurvive to adulthood to become

(02:18):
these massive rain forest trees.But when they do, they are super
tough. So tough that they youknow, just observers I think at
first and now looking morescientifically at it are seeing
that they are survivinglightning strikes. And which is
interesting because trees, ifyou're the biggest, tallest tree

(02:40):
with the largest or widest crownor canopy, you've now become
primary target for lightningstrikes. You know, these this is
a case where, yes, lightningdoes in fact strike here more
than once.
They they're just kind of moreof that this kind of that beacon
or that lightning rod forlightning strikes. And so

(03:03):
they're they're that biggertarget. But these particular
trees, they seem to survive moreoften than not lightning
strikes, which wind up killingall of the smaller competitive
trees around them, and even alot of those tropical vines that
grow on the branches of of thesetrees that get struck by

(03:23):
lightning. And so it sheds offall these vines. It it reduces
competition around it, and theysee kind of a a jolt of growth
in these trees from thislightning strike.
So pretty fascinating idea herethat there's potential
evolutionary pathway here forlightning surviving

(03:47):
survivorship.

Ken (03:50):
So lightning isn't all bad.

Chris (03:53):
If you are this particular tree.

Ken (03:55):
Yes. There's the exception to the rule we always talk
about.

Chris (03:59):
That that's true. Yes. Yes. And they don't really know
why. There's theories, but,know, basically, like, there's,
you know, different species oftrees have different types of
woody fibers, differentphysiological traits within
them, know, their vesselstructures might be a little
different.
Maybe they hold a little bitmore water in certain parts of

(04:20):
their trees or their cells. Theymight have different like metal
ions, like concentrations ofthem throughout their tissue.
And so all of that, you know,these are just theories. They
don't really know why thesetrees are able to have a low
resistance to lightning, whichjust allows the lightning to
sort of pass right through theminto all of the surrounding
trees. So, yeah, I just veryinteresting article was sent to

(04:44):
us by a viewer on the of thepodcast.
So, yeah, thanks for sendingthat. It was a very very good
read. So I enjoyed it. And it II grew up on a hill out in the
middle of the country, and so Iwe had lots of lightning strikes
around the house, on the house,of the trees. Yeah.

(05:05):
So we we lost a lot of trees tolightning when growing up.

Ken (05:10):
Sounds like you need a cold hearty version of of this one.

Chris (05:13):
I yes. I program. Yeah. And I think it's one of those
with the big wide buttresses,these big tropical trees that's
just like they flare out tothis, I don't know, just this
humongous thing at the base. So,yeah, I'll probably dive more
into this topic later just justdoing some reading then because

(05:35):
I find this interesting.
So but we can share the articledown below in the show notes.
Ken, what are we talking abouttoday? What is IPM?

Ken (05:43):
IPM is integrated pest management. So, basically, we're
using multiple, I guess,multiple different ways of
managing pests in our landscapesinstead of just using the the
all too popular spray and preapproach. So we see a pest, we
reach for the pesticide, wespray it, hope for the best.

(06:05):
We're using other otherstrategies to to manage these
pests besides chemical.

Chris (06:11):
I see. Okay. So we're we're taking a multipronged
approach here to to take care ofa pest. But what are those
pests? This seems prettyrelative to folks.
Right? Like, you know, my pestmight not be your pest.

Ken (06:32):
I think you just have to look at our lawns to to figure
that one out. So Yeah.Basically, a pest is is any
organism, whether that's aninsect, a plant, which we would
call a weed, a pathogen, amammal, a bird, what have you,
that's seen as harmful,annoying, causing some sort of

(06:54):
damage, whether that's to ourplants, the environment in
general, property, humans, whathave you. So, basically, it's
it's an unwanted object. So, youknow, we think about creeping
Charlie.
I think majority of people wouldconsider that a weed regardless

(07:14):
of where it's growing. I mean, Iconsidered weed. My yard's still
a good chunk of CreepingCharlie, but it's not a big
enough pain for me to doanything about. But I would
still consider that a weed.Japanese beetles.
I have I have yet to meetsomebody who wants Japanese
beetles, even though they arebeautiful insects. Again,
they're they're feeding onornamental plants. They're

(07:36):
feeding out fruits. They'refeeding on vegetables. So we
consider that a pest.
Diseases, I can't maybe likeyour tulip break virus. Maybe
that would be a a desirabledisease, but most people do not
find diseases to be desirable intheir plants, especially if it's
a a plant they want. You know,maybe if it's a weed and it's
got a disease, you may be happy.But again, diseases, fungus,

(07:58):
bacteria, virus, what have you,people would consider a pest.

Chris (08:05):
I I readily encourage fire blight and calorie pear,
you know, just put that one outthere.

Ken (08:10):
The exception to the rule.

Chris (08:12):
I take fire blight infected pears and throw them in
other ranch and other trees. No.I don't do that, folks. I don't.
That'd be mean.
Only on my own property. That'sright. That's right. Don't don't
do that to someone else.

Ken (08:25):
But then we've got things like, like squirrels. So some
people actively feed squirrels,others they don't want to
squirrel around. That that'swhere we start kind of getting
into that. Is that a pest? Is itor not?
Birds? You know, a lot of peoplefeed birds. But when they're we
have a drought and they'regetting into your garden and
eating your your tomatoes oryour peaches or anything like
that, we consider them a pest.So I think there's there's some

(08:50):
organisms out there that we willwidely consider pests, doesn't
matter who it is. There's othersthat's going to depend on on the
individuals, whether they thinkit's a pest.
And then it may be the situationtoo, where birds normally are
fine, but when they start eatingour crops and they're pests. So
it's it's a continuum. It's allshades of gray now, not black

(09:11):
and white like we like to makeit a lot of times.

Chris (09:14):
Yeah. I had someone we were talking this morning, they
were master gardener and theywere saying how they were
excited that the snakes wereout. This was a particular
person who likes snakes. Theywant snakes in their yard. And
they caught the crows gettingthe garter snakes out of their
yard.
And the crows, I didn't knowthey did this behavior, but they

(09:36):
will drown them or dunk them inthe birdbath. Like, I don't know
if they're drowning them or ifthey're cleaning them or what. I
don't know what they're doingwith the snake and why they're
submerging in the water. But shewas so upset because, like,
snakes, I wanted I wanted thesesnakes and these crows come in
and they just start eating themall. And so, yeah, it's darn

(09:57):
crow birds.
I I do like birds except forstarlings. I don't like
starlings, European starlings.That's I see the starlings at
the suet feeder and that's whenI I unleash my hounds, my two
little labs.

Ken (10:10):
So hopefully, she didn't try to rescue the snake from the
crows. I don't know if you wannamake a bunch of crows angry at
you.

Chris (10:15):
No. You don't wanna get a murder of crows angry at you.
No. No. Don't do that.
But, they're they were cleaningtheir she's she's watched it
happen. She's like becausesomeone else like, well, you
sure it wasn't a raccoon?Because raccoons do that too.
She's like, nope. I watched himpick up the snake and put it in
the bird bath.
It was behaviors they'd neverseen before.

Ken (10:39):
Yeah. Yeah. Snakes would be another example. Mhmm. I would
be excited if I found a snake inmy yard, but some people would
be running for the shovel andthat'd be the end

Chris (10:48):
of that. Come visit me, Ken, where the water snakes will
chase you back into the house.Oh, okay. So pest vary. It's
relative.
And so we're gonna utilizeintegrated pest management or
IPM as a strategy to minimizedamage to our plants that we

(11:14):
want to to keep from beingdamaged. So how do we start the
system? Like, you you know,alright. Yeah. IPM.
But what's the foundation here?Like, what where where are we
beginning?

Ken (11:27):
Yeah. So a lot of the conventions. So IPM, it's it's
again, this is comprehensiveapproach to managing pests,
whether we're defining that asinsects, weeds, pathogens, what
have you. And in a lot of cases,we'll use insects, for example,
we've got this population ofinsects. We're going to use
these strategies and we'retypically, we're not going to
completely eliminate pests inthe case of insects or something

(11:51):
like that.
Because we're trying to useenvironmentally sound practices,
economically sound practices.And if we want to completely
eliminate something, a lot oftimes we're getting away from
that, those environmentally,economically sound practices. So
we're getting a lot times we'regetting populations down,
especially for insects, to alevel where they're not causing
like considerable or reallynoticeable damage. So we're not

(12:12):
losing a lot of yield on ourcrops. They're not for
ornamental plants, it's notcausing, you know, so much
aesthetic damage that it's it'snoticeable.
You know, there there'll be somechewing here and there, but it's
not detracting from the overallappearance of the plant.
Typically not completely wipingsomething out if we're taking
the IPM approach. And I thinkthere's a lot of ways people

(12:35):
talk about IPM a lot of times totalk about them as a toolbox. So
we've got our different tools inthe toolbox to manage pass. When
I was in school, you know, way Ilearned it was like as a
structure.
So basically any good structure,you've got a good foundation.
You you can do have all thefancy pillars and all that, but
foundation crumbles, it allfalls apart. So kind of the

(12:56):
foundation for our for IPM orpest management is, you know,
basically understanding what ourplants are supposed to look
like, the requirements that theyneed to grow. So is it, you
know, the sun exposure, youknow, we're planting full sun
and shade or vice versa, yourplants are gonna struggle, and
they're gonna be more prone tostuff. You know, what's that

(13:16):
plant supposed to look like?
What is normal? And that canvary depending it's going to
vary from species to species,cultivar to cultivar. A lot
time, you know, nowadays withmore and more cultivars, there's
some weird looking stuff thatdoesn't look like the quote
unquote normal plants. Soknowing what it's what it's
supposed to look like. So if yousee something abnormal, is that
just a cultivar, is thatactually something that's

(13:38):
causing the problem?
You know, if you've got youknow, I think most people
planting a garden. We're we'refor the most part, we know what
we're planting. Maybe for movinginto a new house, we don't know
what stuff is necessarily. Butknowing what your plants are,
familiarizing yourself with someof the common pests and diseases
that show up, you're never gonnaknow all of them. And we don't

(14:00):
know all the best that canattack grass just off the top of
our head.
Alright. Pick your plant.Anyway, there there's so much
stuff out there, and there'ssome oddball stuff that, you
know, you read about, but you'llnever actually see or, stuff
like that. But what whatcommonly attacks it? So know
what that stuff looks like, youknow, in the case of diseases,
what are those common symptoms?

(14:20):
Where does it attack? Just kindof get a general familiarity of
what what potential problems aregoing to be so that when you are
out in your landscape looking atstuff, you can recognize that
stuff. And the sooner you younotice something going wrong,
the sooner you can take action,the easier it is in a lot of
cases to manage that problem ifif you catch it early. So that's

(14:43):
you know, you can use all theinformation to go out and kind
of inform your scouting when yougo out and do that.

Chris (14:49):
You said we're we're not doing spray and pray. We're
diagnosing plant problems. Youknow, we're going out and we're
trying to figure out what isgoing on. And it has happened
multiple times in my career herewhere I get the phone call after
the fact, after whatever damagehas happened or perceived damage
has happened and after thepesticide has been applied, then

(15:12):
I get the phone call like, well,what was this? I sprayed it.
I don't know what I was sprayingfor. Like, well, it's hard to
tell after the fact. So but wecan rule some things out. But
really, think the key thing is,as you mentioned, Ken, is just
being able to identify what isthe difference between an
environmental issue and livingor a biotic issue. So this is

(15:37):
kind of like abiotic versusbiotic.
So something that would be abiotic issue would be aphid
damage causing curling on yourleaves or could be a particular
leaf disease like anthracnose ormildew that causes curling on
your leaves. Compare that to anenvironmental issue, which could

(15:57):
be like frost damage, causesvery similar looking curling or
potentially even like herbicidedamage, which would be a human
caused thing, environmentalissue drifting onto your plants.
So there's they all look verysimilar. And so I think it is is
being able to go out and sortof, as you mentioned, scoping

(16:20):
out what's going on around yourgarden, around your landscape,
looking for those patterns. Andwe're diagnosing stuff.
We're not guessing. Well, kindof still do sometimes, but we

Ken (16:32):
Educated guesses.

Chris (16:33):
And that's what we learned in science class. Yes.
That's right. So we're makingeducated guesses. Yeah.
And I would say from, like, the,like, the landscape industry,
when we talk about theaesthetics of plants, you know,
people don't really notice whentheir plants are being damaged
at first. You know, there'sthere's a lot of insect feeding

(16:56):
that can go on. There's a lot ofdisease issues that can manifest
before we start noticing. Youknow, we're not up in the canopy
of our shade trees every daylike we are when we're picking
tomatoes or picking peppers orsomething where we're like face
to face with those plants. Andso I think in that aesthetic
world, our threshold for damageis much higher than if we were

(17:22):
in the vegetable garden.
And for some people, if you'relooking at your turf grass,
there sometimes you can not havea blade out of place, and the
the alarm bells start ringing intheir heads and they they start,
you know, not start trying tofigure out, you know, what's

(17:42):
going on, what else do I need toapply to to fix my lawn. I I I
find that there's a lot ofpeople that are very sensitive
about vegetables and lawns andhydrangeas too. I get a lot of
hydrangea hyper hydrangeaquestions. So so yeah. That but
but basically, this point I'mtrying to make is that the

(18:03):
aesthetic landscape, theornamental landscape, usually
our threshold for pests is ishigher.

Ken (18:12):
Yes. And even it's gonna vary on on individuals. I'm
willing to bet that my damagethreshold on aesthetic plants is
gonna be much higher than thanmany other people. I it's gonna
take a lot for me to actually dosomething about something
eating, my ornamental plants.Basically, it's it's basically I
have to risk like the plantdying before I'm going do

(18:33):
anything about it in a lot ofcases.

Chris (18:35):
And maybe that's their thought too. Like they see
damage and they think this couldcause this plant to die.
Whereas, you know, you and I,we're, you know, we're at least
a little bit hopefully, we knowa little bit more than the
average person, but I I won'tmake that claim in public, only
to you dear podcast folks. I Iwould say we just we know that

(19:02):
insects eat plants and thatplants get sick, and it's
usually not not all the time,but but a lot of times, it'll be
okay. You know, the plant willrecover, you can cut that that
particular disease off.
You know, there's things thatyou can do that won't kill that
plant. So it's not a panickymoment for us at least. I think

(19:23):
that explains when I would walkinto the kitchen, you know,
bleeding everywhere and my momwho was a nurse would be like,
you're fine.

Ken (19:33):
I was panicking. She was pulsating. Yeah. Bone's not
sticking out. You're fine.

Chris (19:41):
Go back outside. Put a band aid on.

Ken (19:42):
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of times when we talk about
pests, we I think a lot of timeswhen we talk about plants, make
them out to be these reallydelicate things that, you know,
one little thing goes wrong.It's it's game over. But plants
are are pretty resilient,especially once they've become
established in the landscape.They can you know, we're

(20:03):
painting with a broad brushhere, but they can handle a fair
amount of damage before thingsstart going south.
Okay.

Chris (20:12):
Well well, good. Yeah. So we've we've we're laying our
foundation down. So let's putsome names to these to our
foundation blocks here. So kindof at the core is the the
science of it all is the thetaxonomy, you know, knowing your
plant, knowing also potentiallyyour pest, the biology, you
know, you know, how and then theecology and so how all that

(20:35):
interacts with each other inthose relationships.
And then maybe on top of that,we have our scouting, which is
us actively doing something outin the garden, not necessarily
spraying anything, but we'rejust being observant. And then
our thresholds, like, you know,what where do we draw the line?
We're like, okay. I need to dosomething. I must intervene

(20:55):
here.
So we have our foundation laid,Ken. I think it's time to keep
building up this structurethough. So you mentioned pillars
to what you learned about interms of IPM as a as a college
lad. What are these so calledpillars that you mentioned?

Ken (21:13):
So so our pillars are our actual management techniques
that are they're kinda doing thethe lifting of our pest
management program are gonna beour cultural controls, our
management strategies, ourphysical, our mechanical
management strategies, ourbiological, and then chemical
control strategies. So we'regonna use these four different
things in our landscapes to tryto manage the pests. And go back

(21:36):
to the scouting real quick. Whenwe're scouting, ideally, we're
going out in our landscapes oncea week. And we're not you have
to do like a thorough spendhours doing this, just go out
into your plants, look foranything that's not, you know,
air quotes, normal here.
You know, we would talk aboutinsects. A lot of our smaller

(21:57):
insects, aphids, mites, thingslike that. They're like the new
succulent growth. So looking atthat, flipping over leaves, see
if there's anything on theunderside. But just go out once
a week, however often you can,and just go out and look.
You know, you you planted allthe plants, might as well go out
and enjoy them. And while you'reenjoying them, look for anything
that may be that may not lookright. And if it doesn't look

(22:20):
right, then you can focus in onthat plant and and investigate
further. So if you see aproblem, you need to actually
look around a little bit more,see if it's just that plant, if
it's other plants beingaffected, if it's only a
particular part of the plant,you know, where where are these
symptoms happening on the plant?So Yes.

Chris (22:42):
So go out and enjoy your landscape, folks. It's an order.

Ken (22:46):
Yes. Let's get a nice out. No more excuses.

Chris (22:50):
That's right. That's right.

Ken (22:52):
Get a raincoat. Be alright. Just don't touch the plants so
you don't spread disease.

Chris (22:56):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You don't touch wet plants. That's that's
that's the thing with vegetablegardens a lot, though. Like,
they're like, don't work in yourvegetable garden after a rain
when the leaves are wet becauseyou could potentially spread
disease that way.
And if you work in a greenhouse,particularly if you're growing
sensitive crops, would have to,like, sanitize your hands, you

(23:17):
have to sanitize your boots.Sometimes they make you put on
like a Tyvek suit or something.Yeah. They don't mess around
with disease.

Ken (23:26):
Can't smoke because you have TSV.

Chris (23:31):
Tobacco mosaic virus?

Ken (23:32):
TSV. Yeah. That can survive through your smoking and stuff.

Chris (23:35):
So Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. So oh, yep. We digressed, Ken, into
disease controls in agreenhouse.
But so yes. Back to our ourpillars, though. Our first one,
you had mentioned culturalmanagement. I mean, I feel like
I'm cultured. I drink middlepriced wines.

(24:01):
I don't mind craft beers, butI'll also go into the beer
fridge for some cheap stuff too.So I'm cultured. What else do I
need for this one? Am I talkingabout the wrong thing here?

Ken (24:14):
I may not be the person to ask. I'm not very cultured. Oh,
no. So so for culturalmanagement, basically, we're
we're maintaining our planthealth. So I think this is these
are all important, I think thisis the one where, you know, if
if you do if you do this oneright, this can probably go the

(24:38):
longest, go the furthest inmanaging pests because we're
trying to maintain plant health.
So just like with with people,you know, when you're, you know,
when we're stressed, not gettingenough sleep, we're more prone
to get sick, because our immunesystem, it kind of gets
suppressed. Same thing withplants. When they're stressed,
they're not growing well,they're more susceptible to

(24:58):
attack from pathogens, insects,what have you. So we're getting
into the right plant at theright place at the right time.
So, you know, again, we're notputting out we're not putting
full sun plants and shade andvice versa.
The plants are going to struggleon that. Know, matching the

(25:19):
plant needs with the properconditions that you have. So if
you've got acidic soils, youcould put blueberries, azaleas,
stuff like that on the ground.If you don't have that, you're
going have to amend the soil orgrow them in pots, because
they're going to struggle in,soils that have pH that are too
high or vice versa. You gethigher pH and pH is too low.

(25:41):
You know, the drainage. So ifyou need well drained soils,
you're not planting that in inareas where water stands or you
need sandy soils, you're notdoing that in our well, our
typical Illinois soils that'sgot decent amount of clay
content, stuff like that. Righttime, you know, that's spring
right now. So we're recordingthis April 15. We've had some 80

(26:05):
degrees, close to 80 degreedays, 70 degree days.
Hopefully, you know, vegetablegardens, can put out tomatoes
and peppers yet cause we'restill getting down in the
thirties at night. And thoseplants are going to suffer and
good chance they're going todie. So properly planting proper
planting time. So that properfertility. So soil testing
occasionally and checking thatpH, what the fertility levels

(26:28):
are like.
So if you if you are deficientin something, good chance the
plant's going to tell you,you're going to have symptoms of
that. But then, you know, you'vegot that soil test to back that
up and then you can amend orfertilize accordingly. Looking
at resistant cultivars, I thinkthis is especially for, I guess,

(26:48):
newer gardeners and especiallyat food crops looking at
resistant cultivars. Sotypically, we're doing this for
diseases. So diseases willattack susceptible plants.
If, you know, if the pathogensthere, the conditions are right,
the plants are gonna getinfected. When we have
resistance, they they still mayget infected, but they're able
to to survive that. The effectisn't as great. You don't lose

(27:13):
as much yield or and stuff likethat. So you can you're gonna be
more successful with thoseresistant.
They can withstand that attackfrom those plants or from those
pathogens. May they may not getinfected or if you have, you
know, perfect conditions, theymay get infected, but it's not
going be nearly as bad assusceptible. So looking at
resistant cultivars for diseasecan help, not going to say

(27:36):
eliminate problems, but canreally reduce the amount of
problems you're going to havepotentially by doing that. You
can do stuff like pruning. Sowe're talking about trees, you
know, pruning out crossingbranches so they're not rubbing,
opening up wounds so pathogensand insects can can get easier,
getting easier, you know, goodsanitation, removing disease by

(27:56):
materials so that inoculum,isn't there, that's able to
spread.
Mulching, you know, we talkabout mulch a lot. We've got a
whole podcast episode on mulch.But putting that down to help
helping retain that that soilmoisture, it can help, you know,
in in the winter, help with thatfrost freeze cycle, help with
heat prevent heaving, of plants,especially with newly planted

(28:20):
stuff. Water use. So we get intoa drought, you know, if there's
no water restrictions, makingsure you're watering stuff.
And if we're getting plenty ofwater and you've got, like, an
automatic irrigation system,turning that off because too
much water is gonna cause justas many problems is not enough.
Both ways we're killing theroots of the plants. One is just

(28:41):
because they're not gettingenough and one's because they've
got too much and they have nooxygen anymore and they die. So
just just some examples of ofways we can do that. The
cultural manager, wow.
This is gonna be kinda in hockeyis before we even plant. We're
looking at this stuff.

Chris (28:57):
Now I get it now. Good plant culture. I I understand.
So right plant, right place.Take care of it the way it needs
to be taken care of.
Gotcha, Ken. I I see why I haveso many problems in my own yard.
I just thought I could throw mymy own cultural personalities at

(29:20):
these landscape plants, and theywould respect me.

Ken (29:23):
Get a get

Chris (29:23):
a monocle for

Ken (29:24):
your plants. It's too much better.

Chris (29:27):
My favorite thing for plants is putting monocles and
googly eyes on them. Yes. How'dyou know? Alright. So we have we
have good culture for ourplants.
And then the next pillar wastalking about physical stuff,
mechanical stuff. So this isobviously where I go and buy all
my tools. Right? And help me dowhat I need to do to to have a

(29:56):
good time in the landscape, youknow, play with all my toys
outside. What are we talkingabout when we talk about
mechanical control?

Ken (30:03):
If if if gadgets are your thing, yeah, mechanical,
physical is is is the one for

Chris (30:09):
you. Yes.

Ken (30:10):
So this we're trying to basically, we're trying to
physically eliminate or preventpests from getting in.
Cultivating the soil for weeds,things like tobacco, tomato
hornworm will overwinter in thesoil so you can cultivate the
soil, try to destroy those peepup, prevent them from from
coming out in the spring. Again,pruning pruning out disease
plant material, pruning out, youknow, bagworms, webworms, things

(30:35):
like that on trees. If you havereally high populations, you
don't wanna hand pull them all.Hand pull or handpicking is
still probably probably betterfor the tree, than slopping off
a branch, but you can you canstill do it.
Just hand pulling weeds orwhatever gadgets you wanna get
for for weed pulling. There'sthere's a lot out there, for
that. Barriers. So, you know,last year with the cicadas, you

(30:58):
know, if you put up netting overa newly planted tree or shrub,
you were practicing, IPM there,trying to keep those, in the
case of cicadas off, so they'renot laying eggs. You see it a
lot in in, like fruit, bushes,raspberries, blueberries,
sometimes putting netting overthose plants so birds can't get

(31:18):
to the fruit and eat them andstuff.
So basically, you're you'rekeeping them out of those plants
so they can't get to them andand take your harvest from you.
And then your other mechanicaldevices, you name it. Your flame
weeders and all of that kind ofI

Chris (31:36):
was just gonna ask you, where does fire fit into all of
this? Would that be Is

Ken (31:40):
it the physical? Is it mechanical? Yeah. Physical. Yes.

Chris (31:43):
Okay. It's not biological. Fire is alive. Like
in the movie Backdraft. So,okay.
The this is I like mechanical. Ido a lot of mechanical, mostly
with my hands. I don't have verythat many toys. I do have a
cultivator, a couple differenttypes of those. And when we

(32:09):
cultivate to control things, youmentioned hornworm, but also
like seedlings, weed seedlings,we're just kind of like
scratching the soil surface.
We're not really we're notdigging. We're just taking these
cultivators. I have a cleanerhoe, I have a wire weeder, you
know, I have a couple otheritems. We're just sort of
scratching up that surface,dislodging those weed seedlings,

(32:32):
which is way easier to do thatthan if you would let those
weeds get away from you and thenyou have to bend over and like
physically pull them out. So,you know, just there are tools
that are made to help you out.
I I often equate a lot of thesegarden tools as like kitchen
gadgets. I feel like the worldof, like, kitchen gadgets, like,

(32:55):
that that whole economy, theyhave all these kind of weird
things to help you or not notreally I don't I guess it's to
help you do simple tasks in thekitchen. I remember my wife, she
got this this one thing, and it,like, it's not the infomercial
one. It's like the knockoff ofthe infomercial one where you

(33:16):
put your strawberry in there andyou slap it and it chops it up.
She you didn't get the brandnames, got the the knockoff one.
But I feel like the gardeningworld has that stuff like that
too, so you have to be careful.I think that there's some core
tools out there that we probablytalked about on the show
multiple times before. But butyeah, there's I I do caution

(33:38):
people sometimes watch out forsome of those gimmicky garden
products. Just just keep youreye out for those. There are
certain things that I reach formore often than others.

Ken (33:53):
Yeah. I'd say yeah, for colonial hoe, stirrup hoe. Those
are I do for use for a lot of myweeding. It's kind of like, you
know, ounce of prevention isworth a pound of cure. You you
get on that early, get them alltheir seedlings.
It's going save you a lot oftime. You can spend an hour
weeding in the spring or you canspend five hours in the summer

(34:13):
trying to hand pull all thatstuff. You know, people are busy
and stuff. But if if you can ifyou can get the time to get it
while it's little, you're gonnasave yourself a lot more time
down the road.

Chris (34:25):
Okay. Very good. Well, the next pillar that we're gonna
be talking about with IPM,notice folks, we haven't even
gotten to chemicals yet. Ournext one is biological controls.
Ken, this one sounds a littlescary to me.
Feels like there's a lot ofhorror movies that have been

(34:47):
based upon some of these thingsthat happen in the real world.
Describe biological controls forme, and I'm gonna hide.

Ken (34:55):
Yeah. I'm trying to contain myself because it make make us
go two hours here.

Chris (35:01):
This is your favorite part. This is

Ken (35:02):
my favorite one. So so this we're using natural enemies to
manage our pests. So usually inhome gardens, this is we're
using insects or other relatedarthropods to control other
insects. Now there are, youknow, if you want to talk about
weed management, you know, withinvasive weeds, sometimes
they'll bring in insects thatwill feed on those. I guess for

(35:25):
the purpose of our of ourpodcast today, we're just going
to talk about insects, mitesfeeding on other insects, and
mites for the most part.
So we've got things likepredators. So these are actively
consuming. They're pretty a lotof times they're active. They're
running around trying to catchstuff. We've got, you know,
spider mites.
So two spot spider mites, commonpests in our ornamental plants,

(35:45):
not a lot of other plants. Youknow, there are I'd say people
are probably familiar with pestmites, but there are also
beneficial mites that arepredatory. They'll go out and
eat other mites, mite eggs,sometimes maybe really small
insects or insect eggs thatthey'll feed on. So again, just
because you see a mite doesn'tmean it's it's actually going to
be a pest. Typically, you know,kind of general rule, our

(36:08):
predatory mites are move muchmore quickly.
They're actively moving around,whereas our plant feeding mites
are a little slower. Not not intoo big of a hurry a lot of
times. And if you smear them,you smush them and smear them.
Usually the plant feeding onesare going to smear green,
whereas the predatory ones aregoing be more of a reddish
orangish color. So if so again,if you see a mite, again, it

(36:31):
doesn't mean we're going tospray.
We want to figure out if it'sactually something that's going
to warrant taking some kind ofaction against it. Ladybugs,
lady beetles, whatever you wantcall them, both the larvae and
the adults will feed on smallsoft bodied insects, so aphids.
Some will feed on mealybugs,some will feed on scale. There's
even some species that feed onpowdery mildew. So they're the

(36:54):
kind of we got a whole gamut ofof things that they'll feed on.
And this is one where we talkabout actually identifying the
problem. I don't know. I'm tosay this is my favorite one,
probably my least favorite one Iquestion I get, but, you know,
people come in, they've got somedamage to their plants. They see
these little insects run around.They spray and they bring them
in, wouldn't know what it was.
Well, they were lady beetlelarvae and they just sprayed and

(37:15):
killed all your lady beetlelarvae. So again, because those
larvae look nothing like theadults. It's, you know, unless
you know what you're looking at,it's not really intuitive. Oh,
yeah. That's a lady beetlelarvae.
Again, proper identification isgoing to be important. We've
got, it's like lacewing larvae,kind of like alligator shaped,

(37:36):
will feed on small soft bodiedinsects and there's all kinds of
different predatory insects outthere. So again, just because
you see an insect doesn't meanit's a pest. We got parasites,
parasitoids, so we got parasoidwasps are usually what we talk
about. So these are small wasps,like the size of a gnat, we're
not talking yellow jacket, Baldfaced hornet size here.

(37:58):
Small wasp lay their eggs insideof an insect, so aphids would be
an example. Wasp will larvaewill eat the inside of the
aphid, it'll pupate inside, cuta hole, come out, kinda like
movie alien that just burst outof there. If you have hornworms
in your in your garden, yourtomato plants, see all those
little white things on there?Those are the cocoons of wasps

(38:19):
that were inside thatcaterpillar eating it. They've
burrowed out, just want acocoon, and they'll go out and,
you know, as one of the emergedadults go out and attack other
caterpillars and stuff.
So if you see something likethat, leave that in your
landscape. That caterpillar'snot eating anymore and you're
gonna have dozens potentiallydozens of caterpillar or wasps
coming out of that that'llattack stuff. In the case of

(38:42):
aphids, they'll they'll becomemummies, they'll kind of inflate
a little bit, look kind of brownand papery. Those have all been
attacked by parasitoid wasps. Soagain, either of these
parasites, parasitoids, youknow, we see these pests, we
want to look a little bit closerto make sure something's not
already managing those.
Syrphid fly larvae, predators,they look kinda like slug. Slug

(39:08):
like. Yeah. So again, but solook closely if you've got some
of these smaller pest insects tosee if you've got any of these
natural enemies there attackingthem. And then we've got
pathogens.
So just like people and plants,insects have diseases that will
attack them as well.

Chris (39:25):
I've heard like fungal infections of insects are
responsible for like, one of thereasons why we're not like up to
our necks in insects. Like like,there's a lot of disease spread
that happens in the insectworld, fungal, bacterial, viral.
Like, you know, we we get sickwith them and so do insects.

(39:46):
We're all we're all animalshere.

Ken (39:50):
Yeah. I would say, yeah, with that and other insects and
things eating them. I mean,nature does a pretty good job of
keeping things under control. Sowhen when we get involved as
people, we throw everything outof whack and things get out of
balance.

Chris (40:06):
So could we bring in other insects to help us out? I
get so many, like, emails andads pop up like buy ladybugs for
your garden. Is that a goodidea?

Ken (40:21):
So so you can do it. I'd say a lot times when you're
buying them, you let them go andthey just disperse everywhere.
They don't really stay where youwant them to stay. So I'd say a
lot times if you're if you'rebuying stuff, especially if
they're really mobile as adults,you're usually doing that. So
you'll be more successful ifyou're doing that in a contained
environment, greenhouseenvironment, something like

(40:42):
that, because they can't escapefrom there.
So and yeah. You see ladybugsfor sale a lot of times in
garden catalogs. And a lot oftimes those are wild harvested,
usually from California andstuff. So there there's no
issues with that. But you know,when you're they're basically

(41:02):
hibernating and then you letthem go and they're all
discombobulated and stuff.
And you see like prayingmantids, the Ootheca for sale. I
mean, I I mean, I think prayingmantids are cool. I like them
and stuff, but I wouldn't spendthe money on those personally.
Usually, they're selling theChinese mantid, which is an

(41:22):
introduced species. You know,they can cause problems for
native, mantid populations.
And, you know, they're they'regeneralists, they're gonna eat
anything they can they can gettheir hands on. I guess their
forelimbs on. So that'sbeneficial, what have you. And,
you know, they if there's notenough food, they will

(41:43):
cannibalize each other. So, youknow, you may have dozens of
them coming out, but you mayonly end up with a couple.
So they're not they're not themost efficient predators in
landscaping. You find one inyour landscape, you know, leave
it. But I wouldn't personallywant to spend the money on on
bringing those in. I think whatwe're really do for the

(42:05):
biological tool is kind ofsetting up our landscape so that
they are kind of inviting orwelcoming to them that
conservation or manipulativebiological control. So
maintaining our habitats, thatour habitats are suitable for
their development.
So we're helping to draw in theadults. The adults are there.

(42:26):
The adults have food sources, alot of them. There's a lot of
the adults will feed on pollenand nectar as adults. You eat
things like like lady beetlesearly in the year, there's not a
lot of other insects out thatthey're going to feed on.
They can supplement their dietwith pollen. And then when the
pest populations come out,they're going to be there
because they've got that thatfood alternate food sources to

(42:49):
keep them around and they can goout and attack, other things.
You know, things with smallerflowery, lot these insects are
small, don't have very big mouthparts, so smaller flowers,
carrot family plants. So if Iget carrots in my garden that
bolt, I just leave them, letthem flower, use that as a food
source for them. A lot of ourherbs.

(43:12):
Typically when we're growingherbs, we want to cut the
flowers off because that reducesthose essential oils, which
gives us the flavors and thearomas and stuff. But I'm not a
big herb person, so I don'treally care if they flower. But
like our mints and stuff, I letthose flower. And then those are
very attractive to variousbeneficial insects and stuff.

Chris (43:32):
Yeah. If we're attracting our beneficial insects, we're
attracting our pollinators.We're helping our amphibians.
We're helping our other wildlifeout there. So yeah, you're
setting up good habitat in youryard.
I like that. I like thatapproach.

Ken (43:51):
Yeah. And if you've got a pollinator landscaping, you're
already doing doing this. Imean, they'll go to that. So
these are the lacks pollinators,as well potentially. It's not a
it's not like an either or.
You're you're doing both. And ifyou're incorporating flowers
into your your vegetable gardensor doing edible landscaping,
you've already potentiallyalready doing some of this

(44:13):
already. But if, you know, ifwe're doing this, we're trying
to draw these in, then we got tobe careful about our pests ideas
because pesticides are killingour pest insects. We're gonna
more than likely, a lot of themare also going to kill those
beneficial insects as well.

Chris (44:31):
Well, Ken, speaking of pesticides, we've covered three
of the four pillars of IPM, andwe have arrived at the pillar,
you know, we call chemicals ormaybe pesticides would be a
better word for that. Because assome people I I talk to like to

(44:55):
hammer in my head, they say,well, everything's chemicals. So
I gotcha. I hear you folks. Iunderstand.
That's just the vernacular weuse in the gardening world. But
yes, the the chemical use or thepesticide use that that last
tool in our toolbox or thisfinal pillar of our structure

(45:17):
here, the thing that I I feellike people get confused, I I
tried to do this. I tried to,like, retrain society to use the
term pesticide correctly. Let metry one more time. A lot of
times people, when they hearpesticide, they think something
to kill bugs.

(45:38):
They don't think of it asanything else. But the way we
use the term pesticide is likeit's like an umbrella term that
covers multiple different typesof chemicals. So a pesticide
being the umbrella term, we haveall of these other names for
these specific sprays that weuse for things. So for instance,

(46:03):
to kill our bugs or our insects,we would call them insecticides.
And then to kill our plants, wewould call them herbicides.
To control some of our fungaldiseases, we would call them
fungicides. And then of course,we have repellents or we have
things that kill mammals likerodents, we call those
rodenticides. And all of thesethings fall within within that

(46:26):
umbrella of pesticides. I'vetried explaining that many times
before, and people just say,yes. But I need to kill, you
know, my let's see, importedcabbage worm.
What pesticide do I use? Okay.Like, you are using that term
correctly, but also not. So it'sinsecticide. Am I being too

(46:48):
picky?
I'm probably being too picky.

Ken (46:50):
No. I see. I don't use pesticides, but I use herbicides
or something. Yes. Yes.
So basically, you know, side iskill. And so pesticide would
just be you're killing pests.And then Mhmm. We're breaking it
down to insecticide is killinginsects and so on and so forth.

Chris (47:08):
Yes. So yes. We we we have a gamut of of insecticides.
Actually, the list that Imentioned, you have a list
that's like so long you thefont's so small, you can't see
all of the different, you know,sides that that there truly are
out there.

Ken (47:28):
Yeah. I'm not even sure that's a a comprehensive list.
You know, mollocides and forkilling snails and slugs and
ovaciides of eggs and somepisocides for fish and

Chris (47:40):
Miticides for mites.

Ken (47:42):
Yeah. You name it. There's there's a side for it.

Chris (47:46):
Figured out how to kill it. And so, yeah, these are
chemicals that we use to controlstuff. So but but really the
whole goal, the whole idea withthe first three pillars of this
IPM structure is that not all ofit rests on this one chemical

(48:07):
pillar. We're, like, we'respreading the load out. You
know, we're we're we're we'retrying to reduce maybe the
chemical input into theenvironment or to at least make
it more targeted, targetedtowards a particular life a part
of their life cycle wherethey're most vulnerable to it,

(48:27):
where we don't have to usehigher concentrations or more
volume of a particular chemicalon whatever it is we're trying
to control.
That, though, just plays backinto the foundation of the
structure, the ecology, thebiology, taxonomy, all of that.
It all works together. And yeah.I we'll we'll have pictures of

(48:50):
this. Right, Ken?
Can we post pictures of thisstructure that you've created on
on the web? For folks listening,we're we're trying our best to
explain, but you probably haveall kinds of wacky things to
visualize in your head.

Ken (49:01):
That's taken to our our crude PowerPoint.

Chris (49:05):
Yeah. There's a diagram. Shapes on top of each other.
That's what we're gonna do.Yeah.

Ken (49:13):
I think with with chemicals, pesticides, however
you want to classify it, I thinka lot of times when people talk
about IPM, it's used as a lastresort. But I would personally
push back on that a little bitbecause sometimes chemicals are
gonna be the best option, formanaging a particular pest. So,
you know, personally, I don'treally like using a last resort

(49:35):
because sometimes, it is gonnabe the best option, but you need
to do it early. And if you tryother things and it doesn't
work, now you're out of luck.You know, think like something
like squash bugs.
If you, you know, try doingthis, that, and the other to
manage them, but you don't getthem early enough, they become
adults. Chemicals we can buy asas homeowners don't really do a

(49:56):
whole lot to those adults. Sothat's one of those, you know,
you're scouting, you see them,you're smashing the eggs, but
you just see the nymphseverywhere. You're probably
better off spraying than tryingto to hand smash or sending out
boards that they can congregateunder. You know, you kinda get
to that point where it's maybeyou can do other stuff, but if

(50:17):
if you don't do it, you know,now you're too late and you're
you're you're in serioustrouble, so to speak.
So

Chris (50:27):
should we get into this, Ken? What is a what about
synthetic versus biorebiorational or or organic types
of chemicals? Do you have anythoughts on that debate? How how
many how many comments would youlike today?

Ken (50:48):
This week? I mean, out of the office for the next few
weeks. Yeah. So it like so, youknow, we as as humans, we like
categorizing things. Sopesticides, anything else we can
categorize multiple ways.
So as you know, how is it used,the target, what's controlling,

(51:09):
how is it made synthetic, birational, context, stomach, how
selective it is, all of that funstuff. So know, our synthetic or
bioretional synthetic is goingto be man made stuff. So would
be our organophosphates,carbamates, pyrethroids, which
is a synthetic version of abioretional pyrethrin. But it's
more stable, It works a littlebit better than than the

(51:31):
natural, and we've improved uponit, so to speak. And biorational
are coming from those naturalmaterials.
So microbial pesticides,something like a BT would be a
bioreactional. It's coming froma bacteria. Botanical or your
plant extracts, horticulturalsoaps and oils are coming from
natural materials. Know, is onebetter than the other? It just

(51:55):
depends on what you're trying tocontrol.
In a lot of cases, I would say,you know, some of our
bioreactionals like themicrobial, the BT, those can be
very selective. You know, theBTK, the Krystakii strain of so
BT is Bacillus thuringiensisbacteria. Kerstakii strain, you
put that out for controllingcaterpillars. They eat that,

(52:18):
destroys the gut. Other insectseat it, it doesn't do anything
to them.
The BTI israeliensis that workson something like mosquito
dunks, works on aquatic flylarvae or fly larvae. Mosquitoes
would be an example of that.Doesn't affect other types. So
some of these can be fairlyspecifics here on having those

(52:39):
non target organisms beingaffected. But, I don't know,
think we'll say pet peeve ofmine for the natural, know,
just, you know, it's natural, soit's safe.
That's not really the case. Imean, are pesticides. They're
intended to kill things. Youknow, a lot of these are gonna
be less toxic than than some ofour our synthetic types. But it

(53:02):
doesn't mean we can be kind ofcavalier about using them.
You still need to wear theproper equipment, you know, long
pants, long sleeves, you know,whatever that label says. But
typically, we're trying to coveras much of our bodies as we can,
so we're not getting thesechemicals, on our bodies and
exposing ourselves. You know,there's some nicotine sulfate,

(53:23):
rotenone, those aren't availableanymore, but those used to be
compost sites that you couldbuy. Those are natural products
and those are much more toxicthan some of these synthetic
type insecticides. You know,nature is is constantly trying
to protect itself from beingeaten or killed.
So, I mean, the natural world'scome up with some pretty toxic

(53:44):
chemicals. So, you know, justbecause it's natural doesn't
necessarily mean it's it's safe.

Chris (53:52):
Yeah. We can't operate in that black and white world of,
you know, blanket statementswhere organic equals safe. Yeah.
I I actually think I did anorganic gardening class when I
first started with Extension,which would have been in 2012.
Back then, you could still buyrotenone, which that is yeah.

(54:17):
It's one of those very potentorganic

Ken (54:22):
pesticides. LD fifty on that. It's a lethal dose that
kills fifty percent ofpopulation. This is in
milligrams per kilogram. So thelower the number, the more toxic
it is.
Routine, I think it was an LD itan LD 50 of like 60. Mhmm.
Whereas Carperil, which is, likeI said, it was commonly
recommended for, like, Japanesebeetles. Seven would be an

(54:44):
example. I don't I don't thinkthere's many seven products, if
any, that use it anymore.
But that used to be the therecommendation, you know, five,
ten years ago. LD fifty on thatis $5.90. So Rhoton is about 10
times more. Levodose is 10 timeslower than than something like
carbonyl. But again, even whenyou can't get Ronan anymore, but
that is still considered a anatural product.

(55:07):
Mhmm. That's right. Naturalismtoxin.

Chris (55:10):
Mhmm. That's spray that on my tomatoes.

Ken (55:15):
We're using that for for Botox. But, I mean, that's
that's natural, but that you gettoo much of that.

Chris (55:22):
Yeah. That makes you sick. You're done for. Yeah.
Yes.
I I again, I say, doesn't matterwhat you use, just yeah. Develop
a good IPM system. Develop agood foundation, your pillars,
all of that. And yeah, you youyou probably won't need to be

(55:45):
reaching as much for a lot ofthe pesticides.

Ken (55:50):
Hopefully. But yeah, just we'll try to move away from the
the spray and braid just becauseyou see and again, usually this
is with insects. Just becauseyou see an insect out there
doesn't mean you need to grab abottle of whatever and start
spraying. Make sure it'sactually something that's
causing problems or will causeyou problems. And again, lot of

(56:11):
cases, there's other things wecan do before we need to spray.

Chris (56:16):
You know, there are combinations too. So we're
trying to battle a particularweed called sericea lespedeza in
a lot of our prairies. And soright now, we are using fire,
which promotes its growth sothat we can then time an
herbicide application to thenwipe it out. And it's kind of an

(56:40):
experiment because we don't knowwhat to do about this particular
plant. It is a non nativeinvasive plant that, you know, a
lot of biologists are prettyconcerned about.
It's taking over a lot ofnatural areas right now. I think
it's gonna make some of theseother herbaceous ones like
teasel and things seem likechild's play compared to sericea

(57:01):
lespedeza. That is I think it'sin your neck of the woods, Ken,
and it is creeping into thesouthern portion of the counties
that I serve currently. Oh, it'sit's here, but it's just barely
here.

Ken (57:14):
Yeah. Think it was a few years ago. Went somewhere and
somebody had some, if I rememberright.

Chris (57:21):
So use the tools in your toolbox. Build your foundation.
Build your structure of IPM. Isthat all we need to mention,
Ken? Profit.

Ken (57:31):
Yeah.

Chris (57:34):
And then make all the money or not money if you're
gardening at home. But but cannot even a lot of our own
pesticides, you know, we groupthem organic versus synthetic.
We have many more categorieswithin within this world of
science here of pesticides. Sothere's different types of

(57:58):
chemicals that are availablethat they act in different ways
or they need and and because ofthis action, maybe they need to
be applied in a certain way. Solet's talk a little bit about
that before we close out theshow and that, you know, what
are the different types ofpesticides out there, you know,
considering like how they needto be applied?

(58:22):
And is there anything that'sleft behind which we call
residual effect?

Ken (58:29):
Yes. Usually, when our pesticides again, categorizing
different ways, but one way youcould do is contact or systemic.
So our contact pesticides, whenwe're using these, they have to
come into contact with withwhatever target pest they're
trying to control. So, you know,if we're trying to con again,
insects is that's what I alwaysdefault to. But, you know, if
we're trying to control aninsect on a plant, we need make

(58:50):
sure we have good coverage, getas much of that plant protected
as we possibly can because if,you know, we miss, you know, or
doing a shrub and you miss awhole branch, well those insects
can feed on that, they're notgoing be exposed to that
pesticide.
It's not going to work on them.So having that good control so
they can come into contact orgood coverage so they can come
into contact with it, and beexposed, take it up, get covered

(59:12):
in a way, however that's goingto work to potentially kill
them. With our contacts, thatresidual is going to be
important. So the longer itsticks around, the more likely
it is that pest is going to comeinto contact with it and we can
control it. On the flip side,the longer it sticks around, the
more likely non targetedorganisms or things that we

(59:33):
don't want to kill are going tocome into contact with it.
So it's a little bit of abalancing act there. We want to
stick around long enough that'sgoing to protect that plant
from, you know, new pests comingin. We don't want to stick
around so long that it's goingto start, you know, it's going
to be there for for months andthen our non target stuff is
going to start coming intocontact with us. So there's a

(59:54):
bit of a balancing act there.What the right answer is, that's
up to the individual to decide,you know, how they're going to
balance that out.
I'd say a lot of the stuff we'reusing as homeowners, there's
some residual, but they're notsticking around terribly long
usually. With our systemicinsecticides, we're applying

(01:00:14):
this to the plants, to the soil,plants are taking that up and
they're moving that insect thatpesticide throughout the plant.
So again, if we're doing,emerald ash borer control would
be an example. We're doing thislike imidacloprid, do that as a
soil drench, plant roots willtake that up, move that
throughout the plant.Glyphosate, is a systemic

(01:00:35):
herbicide, so that's supplied toleaves of the plant.
That herbicide is then moveddown to the roots of the plant
and it's killed. So thesechemicals are moving within the
plant to either protect it orkill it. Typically these are
gonna take longer to work justbecause they have to move
throughout the plant in order todo whatever they're gonna do. A
lot of times they will lastlonger because they're not, and

(01:00:57):
they're not exposed to UV lightto the same extent as something
that's on the surface of theleaf. So it's not being broken
down as quickly.
And then, you know, how much itmoves in the plant is going to
vary on the chemical. Some ofthem will move long distances,
you know, something likemetocloprid, others may only
move few inches, fewcentimeters. You know, it's
basically from the leaf surfacedown into the leaf. So it's,

(01:01:19):
it'll vary depending on on thechemical, how much movement
within the plant you're gonnaget.

Chris (01:01:25):
And there's a lot of information that a person using
these chemicals can glean byreading the label. That that is
your resource. That is yourinformation. That's why we
always say read the label ifyou're going to use any type of
pesticide. That label istechnically the law.
Right, Ken? Like, it's a legaldocument.

Ken (01:01:45):
Yep. Yeah. Basically, you buy that and you're you're
agreeing that you're gonnafollow the directions. They'll
tell you how much to put on, howoften you can do it, what plants
you can put it on, what you canexpect to control, what you need
to wear when you're putting iton, how long you need to wait
before you go back into thoseplants, how long you have to
wait before you can harvest.Yeah.

(01:02:06):
Get it on you, what are yousupposed to do, to pose risks to
other organisms. So there'sthere's all kinds of information
that I would say that well, Idon't think it'd be counterfeel.
So I think most people probablydon't read the label. They just
look to see how much do I needto put on, and that's the end of
that. But maybe I have to.

(01:02:27):
I would say the first time youuse it, read that thing cover to
cover, know what you're doing.Ideally you do that every time,
but at least once. Read throughit, know what you're you're
supposed to be doing.

Chris (01:02:41):
Well, we got into a lot of issues with it last year
because that is when the companyRoundup changed their active
ingredients. They tookglyphosate out at least for the
residential market, and theyput, like, three, you know,
different types of activeingredients in there, one of
those had a residual effect onwoody plants that glyphosate

(01:03:02):
didn't have. And so if you werespraying Roundup with these
three new active ingredients ona particular area, you now had
to wait thirty days beforeplanting any type of woody plant
material in that area. And thatwasn't true with the product
before. And I think a lot ofpeople got burned on that

(01:03:25):
because they just missed thatpart of the label.
Yeah. Like you said, Ken,they're looking for how much do
I apply. They got that, but theymissed that part of like, here's
here's what other things can bedamaged and here are the
residuals of these new chemicalsthat we put into here.

Ken (01:03:43):
Yeah. Because before it would only it'd only be a couple
days. And and yeah. I think wehave point out, labels do
change. So, you know, you may beused to, you know, I always get
this product.
This is how I do it. Well, itchanged on you. Mhmm. And you
get just and yeah.

Chris (01:04:01):
So we talked about bees last week, Ken. Real quick, how
do we spray things to protectbees?

Ken (01:04:10):
Well, don't spray would be one. But if you need to

Chris (01:04:12):
step one, don't spray.

Ken (01:04:14):
And, you know, if you need to spray, you know, that's you
can take off the flowers of theplants, remove those flowers so
the bees aren't gonna bevisiting. Try doing that, you
know, at dusk or dawn. I wouldsay more like or if I had to
pick dusk or dawn, I would dodusk. That just gives you that
much more time for that dustside to dry out. And if you're

(01:04:36):
doing it at dawn, you've onlyhad a short time before the bees
are coming back out.
But you know, you're doing adusk, your your moths and stuff
are may get hit. So that's, youknow, that's not a perfect
solution for that. As far asselectivity, you know, there's
some pesticides that are gonnabe less toxic than others to
bees, but all of them so most ofthem are still gonna have some

(01:04:58):
sort of toxicity to them. PurdueUniversity had assuming it's
still available, they havedocument. We'll have to try to
find it.
We can put a link in the shownotes on that gives the toxicity
of different pesticides tohoneybees. So honeybees is what
all the research is done onbecause, you know, we can keep
them in hives and they'rethey're easy to manage that way.

(01:05:20):
Whereas native bees, it's alittle more difficult, but at
least honeybees, you've got anidea of of what is going to be
toxic to them or or more toxic Idon't think. So looking at the
least less toxic stuff, it'sstill potentially going to
affect them. I think more andmore research is finding that
even low doses, sub lethal dosesare still having negative

(01:05:41):
effects on honeybees,bumblebees, other types of bees
as well.
And it's not just insecticides,fungicides is going to mess with
their the gut flora as well. Sobe careful with fungicides as
well. And looking at less toxicstuff, changing the time of day,

(01:06:02):
or removing flowers if possible.So they're not visiting those
plants while they're they'rebeing sprayed or after they've
been sprayed.

Chris (01:06:10):
And folks, we usually do get some hate when we talk about
using pesticides on the show.Just wanna make sure to know
that that what IllinoisExtension does is that we
deliver kind of an unbiased lookat things. We want to give you
information so that you can makea decision about what to do in
your yard. We are not heretrying to tell you what to do.

(01:06:32):
So feel free if you wanna makeany comments.
You're you're more than welcometo, but just know that, you
know, we're not trying to steeranyone in any direction. This
providing you information foryou to make your own choices.

Ken (01:06:46):
Yes. And we will. We'll keep talking about pesticides
until they are banned Mhmm.Which I don't think is coming.

Chris (01:06:53):
Probably not coming. Clear. Banned or or not needed.
Yeah. Well, one of those things.
Yeah. So one of those twothings. Well, that was a lot of
great information aboutpesticides and how they fit into
an overall IPM structure.Integrated pest management, not
the start to a junior high joke.Well, the Good Growing podcast

(01:07:16):
is a production University ofIllinois Extension, edited this
week by me, Chris Enroth.
A special thank you, Ken. Thankyou so much. You know what? You
sound like you might havestudied this at one point in
time in your schooling. Thismust have been a big part of
that old PhD thing you got atold Florida.

Ken (01:07:34):
No PhD. DP. Oh, what?

Chris (01:07:36):
I'm going

Ken (01:07:37):
to call

Chris (01:07:38):
it I'm labeling Ken as a doctor here. I'm going to get No
PhD is coming after me. I don'twant that kind of pressure.

Ken (01:07:48):
Yes. Yes. I spent many many hours in in classes learning
about it. Hopefully hopefullyeverybody will at least consider
it now, if not outright do it.So go out there and search
scouting.
See what's out there. Get ahandle on it sooner rather than
later. An ounce of prevention isworth the pound to cure. And

(01:08:12):
let's do this again next week.

Chris (01:08:15):
Oh, we shall do this again next week. The
horticultural hijinks shallcontinue on the Good Growing
podcast as we get through themonth of April. Oh my gosh, Ken.
We're we're halfway through.It's tax day as we record right
now.
So, I mean, it's gonna beharvest time any day now. Right?

(01:08:35):
Tomatoes coming out yet? No. Notyet.

Ken (01:08:37):
And we're getting close.

Chris (01:08:38):
We are getting close. Oh, yeah. It's gonna be it's gonna
be a short spring, it feelslike. So yeah. Getting plants
set out already.
So Well, listeners, thank youfor doing what you do best and
that is listening. Or if you'rewatching us on YouTube watching.
And as always, keep on growing.All set.

Ken (01:09:09):
All set. Yeah. My stretch is done. Alright.

Chris (01:09:12):
Yep. Aluminum linoleum. Aluminum linoleum.

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Ep. 208 IPM: Techniques, Tools, and Tips for a Healthier Garden | #GoodGrowing

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 208 IPM: Techniques, Tools, and Tips for a Healthier Garden | #GoodGrowing