How can the use of Integrated Pest Management Strategies, be used to educate Landscape Industry Employees and Environmental Policy-Makers on the benefits IPM has on ecological health in urban Cincinnati?

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a sustainable decision-making process that uses information on pest biology, environmental data, and technology to manage pest damage in a way that minimizes both economic costs and risks to people, property, and the environment. IPM uses four major components: cultural control, mechanical control, biological control, and chemical control in order to support prevention of insect pest and pathogen problems in the landscape. Landscape industry employees (landscapers, contractors, garden centers, horticulturists, arborists, lawn care professionals, landscape architects) and environmental policy-makers need education on the four components of integrated pest management in order to conserve beneficial insects in the landscape, make improvements to the ecological health in urban Cincinnati and to make quick, insightful, and smart decisions when it comes to prevention and control of insect pest and pathogen problems. This project explains the educational strategies that landscape industry employees need in order to fulfill this initiative.   

Quinn Leibold - BS HORT