Cultural (agronomic practices)

Mechanical

• Selecting Plant Resistant Varieties         Example: Growing resistant varieties of wheat for reducing severity of wheat stem sawfly.

• Cultivation                                                     Example: Clean tillage between field rotations decreases the establishment of new weeds, especially perennials.

• Crop Rotation                                                 Example: Levels of Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, white mold, are reduced by crop rotation to non-susceptible hosts; common hosts of Sclerotinia in North Dakota are dry beans, sunflowers, soybeans and canola.

• Hand Weeding                                               Example: Removing weeds by hand is only practical for use by the home gardener, organic grower or researcher, although sugar beet growers will often hire labor for hand weeding.

• Cultivation, Tillage Practices                     Example: Cultivating row crops reduces herbicide applications.

• Exclusion Using Screens or Barriers              Example:   Banding trees with Tanglefoot to control cankerworms.

• Variation of Planting Or Harvesting Dates          Examples: Delayed planting of sunflowers until late May or early June reduces sunflower stem weevil and sunflower beetle densities.

• Trapping, Suction Devices, Collecting Machines                                                      Example: Walk-through fly traps removes horn flies from range cattle; apple maggot trap in   home orchard.

• Plant Spacing                                               Example: Narrower row spacing favors development of plant diseases due to environmental conditions within crop canopy.  More moisture on plant surfaces and higher relative humidity favors conditions for infection, such as with white mold in soybeans.

• Heat                                                                       Example: Burning surface residues, soil pasteurization.

• Cold                                                                      Example: Cold storage of potatoes to prevent storage rot.

• Fertilization Level                                         Example: A crop with balanced fertility levels has greater capacity to resist disease organisms and a greater capacity to compete with weeds.

• Augmentation of Natural Enemies              Example: Simple sugar solutions can be used as artificial honeydew to promote aggregation of adult lady beetles in aphid infested crops.

• Sanitation                                                           Example: Cleaning out storage areas or grain bins helps prevent infestations of stored grain insect pests.

• Introduction of Parasites or Predators              Example: Releasing biocontrol agents (Aphthona, flea beetles) to control noxious weeds (leafy spurge).

• Planting Pest-Free Seed                                Example: Planting disease-free seed or using seed treatments with a fungicide will help protect germinating seed and seedlings from seedling blight.

• Propagation of Diseases of Pests               Example: Bacterial agents (Bacillus thuringiensis) for natural control of insect pests like Colorado potato beetle or European corn borer.

• Planting Trap Crops                                       Example: A trap crop consists of a field margin planted to an early maturing sunflower that surrounds the remaining sunflower field area.  The margins flower earlier than the remaining field interiors and attract the red sunflower seed weevil first.  As a result, the trap crop concentrates the weevils in a smaller area reducing the cost of insecticide and time required for control.

Chemical

• Herbicides, Insecticides, Fungicides

• Miticides, Nematicides, Rodenticides, Avicides (black birds)

• Biological Pesticides (for example, insect molting inhibitors)

• Defoliants

• Desiccants