Mission Statement
The Greenhouse/Floriculture Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Program is an educational delivery program for commercial growers of annual and perennial flowers, herbs and vegetable transplants in New Jersey. IPM employs a variety of management techniques into comprehensive strategies to manage pest populations below economically and aesthetically damaging levels. IPM includes many general aspects of crop management such as environmental control and cultural practices (e.g. irrigation, fertilization, growth regulation) and may also be called integrated crop management or ICM. The program is designed to help commercial growers to produce top quality plants in the most economical means possible.
Objectives:
- Help growers produce top quality crops, limiting or reducing production costs.
- Educate growers, field scouts, industry workers, and others interested in IPM practices.
- Employ all pest and crop management practices into a set of commercially used methods. These include the use of: pesticides, economic/aesthetic threshold levels, resistant cultivars, optimum horticultural practices, environmental monitoring, pest scouting, and fertility monitoring and recommendations.
- Conduct research/demonstration programs that further the adoption of IPM methods.
For more information contact:
Steven K. Rettke
Greenhouse/Nursery IPM Program Associate I
Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Monmouth County
4000 Kozloski Road
PO Box 5033
Freehold, NJ 07728-5033
732-861-8105 (Cell)
rettke@njaes.rutgers.edu