The advantages of practicing integrated pest management (IPM) with a "Plant Positive" rather than a "Pest Negative" perspective are becoming increasingly clear. As outlined by Eliot Coleman and many other capable deep agricultural thinkers, this Plant Positive perspective allows us to approach pest outbreaks with an emphasis on their basic causation, instead of simply treating the same old symptoms. On the other hand, we must be very cautious in presuming that simple cause and effect or predictive relationships can be delineated from single, although easily monitored, parameters in our complex agricultural ecosystems.
