The goal of management at Larriland Farm is to provide you with the highest quality and safest produce possible at the lowest cost. To accomplish this goal, we make us of IPM. We hire an independent consultant to help us implement the IPM program. We monitor crops for insects and diseases. We use disease resistant crop varieties, cultural controls, sanitation control and then, only as a last resort, pesticides are used. These practices result in the high quality produce that has come to be associated with Larriland Farm.

Integrated Pest Management, usually referred to as IPM, means using many tactics to keep pests below an acceptable level with minimum harmful impact on the environment.

Goals and Benefits of IPM

• IPM protects public health and the environment by limiting pesticide use.
• IPM reduces production costs, while maintaining high quality produce.
• IPM practices help protect the soil and water by reducing synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use.

How IPM Works

Crops are Monitored for harmful diseases and insects and for beneficial insects. Potential damage to the crop quality and crop quantity is determined by an independent IPM scout who, based on his findings, recommends either applying pesticides or not applying pesticides.

IPM Practices

IPM uses disease and pest Resistant Crop Varieties which either resist or tolerate key pests while yielding high quality produce with less pesticide use.

IPM uses Cultural Practices which decrease pest populations. Cultural controls include: crop rotation, managing water and fertilizer correctly, and plowing to turn under crop residues to destroy disease and organisms such as fungi and bacteria and the eggs of insect pests and slugs.

IPM uses Sanitation to remove crop residues that may contain diseases and other pest problems, and it makes use of clean seed, transplants, and equipment.

IPM uses Biological Controls which are natural enemies of the pests. Certain beneficial insects may feed on the pest insects for example.

And, finally IPM uses Pesticides when all other methods have been exhausted. At this point, pesticides are applied using the lowest rate of the safest and most effective chemical labelled for the crop. The timing of these pesticide applications is critical; therefore, customers are allowed to pick only in assigned fields.

We hope you will enjoy your visits to our farm and please feel free to ask questions of the production crew about IPM. The clerks will be happy to direct you to any of the production crew.