Controlling future pests

Started taking care of the arbor my parents started 40ish years ago. As I'd never had luck growing plants (even my silk ones died!) I puttered through it and got good results from the green varieties. I did have some issues with caterpillars but I caught them early. The purple grapes came later and the leaves started looking sick. Checked it out, said it was leaf lice, leaf mites, etc. Been treating them with diluted soap "Dawn" but can't seem to get them under control. Once harvest is over, I plan on doing a major pruning and cleanup. Can I scorch the main base and surrounding area to kill off any more pests so they don't come back next year?

Hi Carlene, welcome to permies.  We use sulfur to get rid of lice in the chicken laying houses.  We also use it to get rid of bugs on the cucumbers. We just dust with it.

Whether management of debris at the base of a plant will control the pests depends a whole lot on the particular species that are your pests.  I'm not sure what "leaf lice" are, but they might be aphids, thrips, scales, whiteflies, leafhoppers, etc. Most of these fly readily and can colonize new host plants from far away. So, management of debris on the ground will help little or not at all.  Most mites are not host-specific and also fly (by "ballooning" with their silk), but they DO overwinter in leaf litter so controlling leaf litter may delay mite colonization next spring.  

Anyhow, bottom lines for effectiveness of any integrated pest management (IPM) tactic are the particular pest involved and its life cycle. Sometimes controlling leaf litter is helpful, sometimes it may be counterproductive by eliminating hiding places for predatory and parasitic insects.