Integrated Pest Management (or horse manure and homemade bug spray from peppers, garlic and onions..)
Our goal at Broken Chalice Farm, between Edom and Ben Wheeler, Texas, is to provide you with the best quality and most natural, produce possible. To do this, we make use of integrated pest management, IPM. We closely watch our plants for insects and diseases. We use the most disease resistant crop varieties we can find, proven natural controls, like crop rotation, and natural fertilizers, companion planting, and then, only as a last resort, honey bee safe (we keep bees and love them so we are very careful!) pesticides/protocols are used. These plant protocols result in high quality, safe, nutritious vegetables and fruits you can enjoy fresh from the farm.
Integrated Pest Management, usually referred to as IPM, means using many tactics to keep pests below an acceptable level with minimum harmful impact on the environment.
How IPM Works:
Crops are closely watched and daily monitored for harmful diseases and insects, as well as for beneficial insects like our lovely honey bees and lady bugs. Potential damage to the vegetable quality and crop quantity is noted early and used to determine either to apply pesticides or not to apply pesticides.
IPM Practices:
IPM uses disease and pest resistant crop varieties, which either resist or tolerate key pests while yielding high quality produce with less pesticide use.
IPM uses cultural practices which decrease pest populations. Cultural controls include: crop rotation, managing water and fertilizer correctly, and plowing to turn under crop residues to destroy disease and organisms such as fungi, bacteria, and the eggs of insect pests and slugs.
IPM uses sanitation to remove crop residues that may contain diseases and other pest problems, and it makes use of clean seed, transplants, and equipment.
IPM, whenever possible, uses biological controls, which are natural enemies of the pests. For example, certain beneficial insects may feed on the pest insects.
And, finally IPM uses pesticides when all other methods have been exhausted. At this point, pesticides are applied using the lowest rate of the safest and most effective chemical labeled for the crop. The timing of these pesticide applications is crucial; therefore, customers are allowed to pick only in our fields, after all danger of possible exposure is removed. Broken Chalice Farm is my home. We live here. We breathe here. We eat what we plant and produce. We don’t want to be exposed to harmful chemicals any more than you do. So rest assured we will not be harming ourselves, and therefore you, for any reason.
We hope you will enjoy your visits to our farm and please feel free to ask any questions you have.
Goals and Benefits of IPM
§ IPM protects public health and the environment by limiting pesticide use.
§ IPM reduces production costs, while maintaining high quality produce.
IPM practices help protect the soil and water by reducing synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use
Our goal at Broken Chalice Farm, between Edom and Ben Wheeler, Texas, is to provide you with the best quality and most natural, produce possible. To do this, we make use of integrated pest management, IPM. We closely watch our plants for insects and diseases. We use the most disease resistant crop varieties we can find, proven natural controls, like crop rotation, and natural fertilizers, companion planting, and then, only as a last resort, honey bee safe (we keep bees and love them so we are very careful!) pesticides/protocols are used. These plant protocols result in high quality, safe, nutritious vegetables and fruits you can enjoy fresh from the farm.
Integrated Pest Management, usually referred to as IPM, means using many tactics to keep pests below an acceptable level with minimum harmful impact on the environment.
How IPM Works:
Crops are closely watched and daily monitored for harmful diseases and insects, as well as for beneficial insects like our lovely honey bees and lady bugs. Potential damage to the vegetable quality and crop quantity is noted early and used to determine either to apply pesticides or not to apply pesticides.
IPM Practices:
IPM uses disease and pest resistant crop varieties, which either resist or tolerate key pests while yielding high quality produce with less pesticide use.
IPM uses cultural practices which decrease pest populations. Cultural controls include: crop rotation, managing water and fertilizer correctly, and plowing to turn under crop residues to destroy disease and organisms such as fungi, bacteria, and the eggs of insect pests and slugs.
IPM uses sanitation to remove crop residues that may contain diseases and other pest problems, and it makes use of clean seed, transplants, and equipment.
IPM, whenever possible, uses biological controls, which are natural enemies of the pests. For example, certain beneficial insects may feed on the pest insects.
And, finally IPM uses pesticides when all other methods have been exhausted. At this point, pesticides are applied using the lowest rate of the safest and most effective chemical labeled for the crop. The timing of these pesticide applications is crucial; therefore, customers are allowed to pick only in our fields, after all danger of possible exposure is removed. Broken Chalice Farm is my home. We live here. We breathe here. We eat what we plant and produce. We don’t want to be exposed to harmful chemicals any more than you do. So rest assured we will not be harming ourselves, and therefore you, for any reason.
We hope you will enjoy your visits to our farm and please feel free to ask any questions you have.
Goals and Benefits of IPM
§ IPM protects public health and the environment by limiting pesticide use.
§ IPM reduces production costs, while maintaining high quality produce.
IPM practices help protect the soil and water by reducing synthetic fertilizer and pesticide use