ABSTRACT
Integrated pest management (IPM) is not a new concept. In reality, the ancient people used IPM as a means to grow crops for food and fiber. Although their cropping methods were determined by trial and error, they realized that crops should be cultivated in certain ways to protect against pests. Some of their techniques seem foreign to us today, such as the offering of sacrifices to the “rust gods” in order to have grains free of diseases, or more understandable in a modern context, such as planting particular crops in certain soil types at a certain time of year.
