Year-Round IPM Program Pages
When planning for pesticide applications in an IPM program, review and complete this checklist to consider practices that minimize environmental and efficacy problems.
Choose a pesticide from the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines for the target pest, considering:
- Impact on natural enemies and honeybees
- Potential for water quality problems and impact on aquatic invertebrates using the UC IPM WaterTox database.
- Impact on aquatic invertebrates. For more information, see Pesticide Choice, UC ANR Publication 8161 (PDF).
- Chemical mode of action if pesticide resistance is an issue.
Before an application
- Choose sprayers and application procedures that keep pesticides on target.
- Identify and take special care to protect sensitive areas (for example, waterways or riparian areas) surrounding your application site.
- Review and follow label for pesticide handling, storage, and disposal guidelines. Check DPR for chemical label updates
- Check and follow restricted entry intervals (REI) and preharvest intervals (PHI).
After an application
- Record application date, product used, rate, and location of application.
- Follow up to confirm that treatment was effective.
Consider water management practices that reduce pesticide movement off-site.
- Install an irrigation recirculation or storage and reuse system.
- Avoid overwatering and deep percolation of water. Consider vegetative filter strips or ditches.
- Install sediment traps.
- Use polyacrylamide (PAM) tablets in furrows to prevent offsite movement of sediments.
- Redesign inlets and outlets into tailwater ditches to reduce erosion.
Consider practices that reduce air quality problems.
- When possible, choose pesticides that are not in emulsifiable concentrate (EC) form which release volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs react with sunlight to form ozone, a major air pollutant.
For more about mitigating the effects of pesticides, see the Mitigation page.