UC IPM Home > Pest Management Guidelines > Mitigating Pesticide Hazards

How to Manage Pests

Mitigating Pesticide Hazards

When planning for pesticide applications, consider practices that minimize environmental and efficacy problems.

Water Quality (Compare Treatments) button as it appears in Pest Management Guidelines. Clicking this button in a PMG takes you to custom recommendations for mitigating water quality problems for that crop.

Choose a pesticide from the UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines for the target pest, considering:

• Impact on natural enemies and honeybees. Within each crop guideline is the Relative Toxicities of Insecticides and Miticides table with this information.
• Potential for water quality problems using the UC IPM WaterTox database. Where pesticides are suggested in the Pest Management Guidelines, click on the Compare Treatments button to see data for those pesticides from the UC IPM WaterTox database.
• Impact on aquatic invertebrates. See Pesticide Choice (PDF).
• Chemical mode of action if pesticide resistance is an issue. See Herbicide Resistance (PDF).

Before an application

• Choose sprayers and application procedures that keep pesticides on target.
• Identify and take special care to protect sensitive areas (for example, waterways or riparian areas) surrounding your application site.
• Review and follow labeling for pesticide handling, storage, and disposal guidelines.
• Check and follow restricted-entry intervals (REI) and preharvest intervals (PHI).

After an application

• Record application date, product used, rate, and location of application.
• Follow up to confirm that treatment was effective.

Consider water management practices that reduce pesticide movement off-site.

• Consult relevant publications.
  • Orchard Floor Management to Reduce Erosion (PDF)
  • Causes and Management of Runoff from Surface Irrigation in Orchards (PDF)
  • Protecting Surface Water from Sediment-Associated Pesticides in Furrow Irrigated Crops (PDF).
• Install an irrigation recirculation or storage and reuse system.
• Use drip rather than sprinkler or flood irrigation.
• Limit irrigation to the amount required by using soil moisture monitoring and evapotranspiration (ET) estimates. See Understanding Your Orchard's Water Requirements (PDF)
• Consider using cover crops.
• Consider using vegetative filter strips or ditches.
• Install sediment traps.
• Use polyacrylamide (PAM) tablets in furrows to prevent off-site movement of sediments.
• Redesign inlets and outlets into tailwater ditches to reduce erosion.

Air Quality (Calculate Emissions) button as it appears in Pest Management Guidelines. Clicking this button in a PMG takes you to the Volatile Organic Compounds page with links to emissions calculators.

Consider practices that reduce air quality problems.

• When possible, reduce volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions by decreasing the amount of pesticide applied, choosing low-emission management methods, and avoiding emulsifiable concentrate (EC) formulations.
• Use the Department of Pesticide Regulation calculators to determine VOC emission rates from fumigant and nonfumigant pesticides.

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