Sampling plans, selective insecticides and sustainability: the case for IPM as 'informed pest management'

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is considered the central paradigm of insect pest management and is often characterized as a comprehensive use of multiple control tactics to reduce pest status while minimizing economic and environmental costs. As the principal precursor of IPM, the integrated control concept formulated the economic theory behind pest management decisions and specified an applied methodology for carrying out pest control. Sampling, economic thresholds and selective insecticides were three of the critical elements of that methodology and are now considered indispensable to the goals of IPM. We examine each of these elements in the context of contemporaneous information as well as accumulated experience and knowledge required for their skillful implementation in an IPM program. We conclude that while IPM is principally about integrating control tactics into an effective and sustainable approach to pest control, this overarching goal can only be achieved through well-trained practitioners, knowledgeable of the tenets conceived in the integrated control concept that ultimately yield informed pest management.