Sanitation

Sanitation is another cultural control strategy that may be highly effective for some pests. Removing crop debris from cotton fields after harvest eliminates overwintering populations of pink bollworms (Pectinophora gossypiella), European corn borers (Ostrinia nubilalis), and sugarcane borers (Diatraea saccharalis). Collecting dropped fruit from beneath an apple tree reduces the next season's population of apple maggots (Rhagoletis pomonella), codling moths (Cydia pomonella), and plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar). Shredding or burning the pruning wood from a peach orchard kills shothole borers (Scolytus rugulosus) and lesser peachtree borers (Synanthedon pictipes) that would otherwise emerge and reinfest the orchard. Clean cultivation is often recommended as a way to eliminate shelter and/or overwintering sites for pest populations. Simply tilling or plowing a corn field before winter may disrupt a pest's life cycle by causing mechanical injury, by increasing exposure to lethal cold temperatures, by intensifying predation by birds or small mammals, or by burying the pests deep beneath the soil surface. Populations of corn earworms and European corn borers have been greatly reduced in recent years by community-wide efforts to plow under corn stubble after harvest