IPM, integrated pest management, is a decision-making system for keeping pests and diseases below damaging levels with the least risk to people, the crop and beneficial organisms. It is not a product or a single tactic. It layers prevention, monitoring, thresholds and a ranked set of controls, with chemical options used last and chosen for selectivity.
In practice
A cannabis IPM programme usually looks like this: quarantine and inspect incoming clones; sanitise rooms and tools between runs; set the environment to discourage pests and disease; scout weekly with a hand lens and sticky traps and keep records; release beneficial organisms preventively in veg; and decide in advance what level of pest triggers each action. Any spray happens in veg, is chosen for its mode of action and compatibility with the beneficials in use, and follows its label. In flower the toolkit narrows sharply, which is why IPM in cannabis is mostly about what happens before week one of flower. Check what is registered for cannabis locally.
Don't confuse with
- Spray schedule: calendar spraying without monitoring; the opposite of IPM.
- Organic growing: a source-of-inputs standard; organic growers still need IPM.
- Biological control: one component of IPM, not the whole system.
