Manage Insects on Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies

While every farming system is unique, the principles of ecological pest management apply universally. Manage Insects on Your Farm highlights ecological strategies that improve your farm's natural defenses and encourage beneficial insects to attack your worst pests. Learn about the principles of ecologically based pest management and the strategies of farmers around the world to address insect problems. Minimize insect damage with wise soil management and identify beneficial insects to put these "good bugs" to work for you. Examples of successful pest management strategies sprinkled throughout the book will stimulate your imagination to address insect problems and develop a more complex, more diverse ecosystem on your farm.

This book could not have been published without the contributions of many scientists, educators and farmers. The concept for "Manage Insects on Your Farm: A Guide to Ecological Strategies" came out of a shorter bulletin, also published by SAN, titled, "A Whole Farm Approach to Ecological Pest Management."

Miguel Altieri and Clara Nicholls, University of California-Berkeley, felt that the bulletin topic could be expanded, and authored this manuscript to explore the concept of ecological insect management in greater detail.

Marlene Fritz, University of Idaho Extension communications specialist, working with SAN staff, edited the manuscript, contacted numerous farmers, scientists and educators, wrote the farm features, and fleshed out the how-to sections of the book. Marlene also solicited and edited additional sections by experts in the other areas of ecological pest management.

Contributors: Fred Magdoff, University of Vermont Sharad Phatak, University of Georgia John Teasdale, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD Joe Lewis, University of Georgia Glen Raines, University of Georgia Luigi Ponti, University of California-Berkeley

The book was reviewed by the authors, the contributors and by numerous agriculturalists:

Stefanie Aschmann, USDA-NRCS; Bob Bugg, University of California-Davis; Larry Dyer, Kellogg Biological Station; Lisa Krall,USDA-NRCS; Doug Landis, Michigan State University; Tom Larson, St. Edward, NE; John Mayne, Southern SARE; Fabian Menalled, Iowa State University; Dale Mutch, Michigan State University; Debbie Roos, North Carolina Cooperative Extension; Kim Stoner, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.

Numerous researchers, farmers and photographers worked with us to provide photos (see credits for individual photos). Special thanks to SARE program assistant Amanda Rodrigues for her research and organizational skills to pull these photos together.

SARE and SAN staff Valerie Berton, Andy Clark, Diana Friedman, Sarah Grabenstein, Kim Kroll and Amanda Rodrigues all contributed over the course of the project.

Andy Clark Sustainable Agriculture Network Beltsville, MD August 2005