Routine monitoring of pests in your area and their natural enemies is a huge component of integrated pest management. The monitoring practices that are utilized during IPM include sweep nets (nets that sweep through vegetation to collect insects that aren’t easily seen), visual inspections, pheromones, and sticky traps. After this, the pests are then documented and tracked in order to take into account the ratio of natural enemies. This step is very important to conduct before any pesticide is applied.