IPM steps
Identify the goals that you hope to achieve through your IPM plan.
Estimated time: 30 minutes
The Climate Appraisal Form is a powerful tool that will serve as the foundation for all of your IPM planning. Based on 30 years of weather data (obtained from the closest weather station to your site), it will give you an overview of the month-to-month weather conditions that you can expect at your location.
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Management zones are geographic areas of the golf course that have common management features. For example, greens frequently are similar in construction and management requirements and can be grouped in the overall category called “greens.” In this exercise, you'll identify each of the management zones for your particular golf course.
Estimated time: One to two hours
This enables you to clearly identify your key pests as well as the practices and products that you want to use to manage them. Portions of the information that you generate on the Pest Worksheet Form will be transferred onto your final IPM plan.
Estimated time: One to two hours
Your IPM Planner represents the culmination of your planning process. When complete, you will have summarized the complex interactions among forces such as climate, pests, turfgrass growth and golf play, and demonstrated the science and logic of your IPM agronomic practices, on a single sheet of paper. In this exercise, you will develop a separate IPM Planner for each of your management zones.
Assignment: Complete the IPM Planner
Estimated time: Two to three hours per management zone
This optional step can be very helpful in selecting and comparing products and practices, but it’s not required to complete your plan. Using the electronic Budget Worksheet, you can estimate and compare costs of pesticides, fertilizers and other products, as well as keep records of products applied, frequency and rates of application, and total yearly costs.
Keeping Your IPM Plan Updated
Once your IPM plan has been completed, you will need to update your goals and plan quarterly. Your final IPM Planner is a living, dynamic document, so it is very important to review, fine-tune and update it periodically (such as monthly) and to rewrite it on a blank IPM Planner form whenever reality deviates significantly from your original predictions.
Lean more: Guide Objectives