Integrated Pesticide Management. Chemical Trespass/Herbicide, 1995

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} AN ORNAMENTAL ROSE GARDEN All I I , MANAGED WITHOUT . INSECTICIDES OR FUNGICIDES �� r i i w AS PUBLISHED IN: °� The American Rose, • January, 1990 �' -'' . - .. a Tim Rhay . ` ." h . ' Turf & Grounds Supervisor � • Eugene Parks Services Division * _ Eugene, OR 97401 ..,:. _. • y -.-_ it :..?4 'fr 1... ..;*;,' _,..: The entry of the George E. Owen Municipal Rose Garden. All photos courtesy of the author. A community asset for decades, the George E. Owen Municipal Even the gardeners were surprised by their success. "Ten years Rose Garden has always rewarded visitors with the unique beauty ago, I would have said we couldn't stop spraying," says Paul of formal plantings on the classic European/English model, but it Heard, assistant to Head Gardener Glenn Thompson. But both is worth a visit today for additional reasons. For the last three men see significant advantages to their IPM approach and, years, by applying the principles of integrated pest management, surrounded by beauty that speaks louder than words of the the staff of Owen Garden has been able to maintain the demand- effectiveness of their methods, neither harbors a desire to return ing aesthetic standards inherent to such a site with no need for to the "old days" of pesticide- intensive rose care. insecticide or fungicide spray applications. "It's agreat relief," says Thompson. "It saves lots ofmoney and Eugene, Oregon's Parks Services Division formally adopted time for other things." The savings are invested in a good cultural IPM for all vegetation and pest control operations in 1980. This program: irrigation, fertilization, pruning, transplanting methods methodology, which is thought to have originated in agriculture and timing and site manipulation /management. The idea is to with the work of USDA employees Hunter and Coad in 1923, keep the roses healthy, eliminating the need to invest in spray stresses the use of naturally occurring controls and cultural programs. practices in combination (integrated) with application of pesti- Predatory insects help hold aphid populations below the level cide materials only when infestation levels reach a "threshold" that would require insecticide application. Soap solutions have (determined in agriculture by economic factors). By substituting proven effective when the "treatment threshold" is reached, but realistic maintenance standards for the economic criteria and their use is confined to identified infested plants rather than setting treatment thresholds below the point where those stan- garden -wide treatments. This keeps non -target impact to a mini- , dards would be compromised, Eugene has adapted the IPM mum (another principle of IPM) and helps to maintain the strategy to the full range of grounds maintenance weed and pest predator population. An updated irrigation system, installed in control situations. 1986, also has assisted. The modern irrigation heads do an The program has been an unqualified success, enabling the effective job of "water blasting" aphids off of the foliage. Division to dramatically pesticide use without negative Disease control is similar but even more remarkable, because impacts on maintenance standards or costs, and attracting inter- the need for pre - emptive fungicide applications at regular inter- national attention. The rose garden's program has been particu- vats is so widely accepted as necessary among rosarians. Indeed, larly satisfying because, in the beginning, it was generally ac- even many who disapprove of chemical pesticides will admit this cepted that dramatic reductions in pesticide use would not be need and suggest alternative plant materials or the use of only the possible there. most disease - resistant varieties of roses — neither of which is a