Pest Control is the activity of managing pests to limit damage. It involves prevention, suppression, and eradication.
Start by removing things that attract them, such as piles of leaves or rubbish, and sealing cracks and crevices. Also, leaky pipes should be fixed, and steel wool should be put in holes. Contact Rodent Retreat now!
Use plants and natural enemies of the pest, such as bacteria or predatory insects. There is often a time lag between the increase in natural enemy populations and the effect on pests.
Prevention
Step 1 is prevention, which involves keeping pests out or at bay through various means. This type of control is especially important for food processing environments. In this setting, pests can cause biological or physical contamination of the food products they invade (e.g., rodent droppings, insect parts, or other foreign matter), damage the product or its packaging, and spread disease organisms to workers or consumers.
Preventing pests usually includes monitoring their numbers to determine if/when they reach threshold levels or start damaging structures, plants or crops. Often, this is done through trapping or scouting. Monitoring can also include examining the environment to see what factors are favoring or deterring pests. For example, plant diseases are most likely to occur when weather conditions are conducive to the spread of the disease organisms.
Taking steps to make the environment unfavorable for pests can be a very effective form of prevention. For example, draining puddles that collect on the ground or changing out collected water in bird baths or ornamental ponds helps to discourage mosquitoes and other insect-borne pests. Similarly, caulking cracks, crevices and gaps where insects or other unwanted pests may enter or hide can be very effective at keeping out the pests.
Other types of preventive measures involve modifying the habitat to make it less appealing to pests, or using chemicals that alter the environment in which pests live. Some of these techniques are mechanical, such as the use of traps, screens and barriers; and others are chemical. Examples of chemical controls include fumigation and drench applications.
It’s important for facility managers and other building staff to learn about pests, their habits, and what can be done to keep them out of the facilities they manage. This information can help them decide whether and when action is needed. For example, some pests have a scary or grotesque appearance, while others bite or sting and still others can cause asthma, allergies or other health problems in building residents and other visitors. In addition, some pest control chemicals can be dangerous if not used correctly or in the right setting.
Suppression
Suppression is the use of devices and techniques to keep pest populations below harmful levels. These include natural controls, such as predators, parasites, and pathogens that attack the host organism or other pests, and physical controls that include traps, screens, barriers, nets, radiation and electricity. Climate and soil conditions also affect pests by limiting their food supply, water, or shelter.
Many species of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish eat pests or prey on them. Similarly, many insects and plant-parasitic nematodes feed on or infect pests, and this process can be enhanced by adding more of these enemies to an area. Fungal pathogens can also be used to control pests; they usually spread by producing spores that grow on the insect’s cuticle and penetrate into the organism, causing disease.
Weather conditions can directly suppress pest populations by killing them or preventing them from reproducing. For example, drought or freezing temperatures can kill some pests by limiting their water supply or cutting off their ability to survive and reproduce. Other weather conditions, such as wind and sunlight, can alter pest behavior by changing their environment or reducing the amount of light they receive.
Other environmental factors can influence the growth of plants and, hence, their resistance to pests. For example, some types of crops, trees, and woods have chemical properties that make them less attractive to pests or that prevent them from completing their life cycles. In addition, some varieties of crops, fruits, and vegetables are more vigorous or tolerant than others and can better resist pest attacks.
Traps and baits are often effective suppression tools, but sometimes the use of chemicals is necessary. This can be true if a pest population has exceeded economic or aesthetic thresholds, or if natural controls are not effective. However, any time a chemical is used for pest control, care must be taken to minimize exposure of humans, animals, and the environment to the substance. Only properly trained and supervised workers should use pesticides. Also, pesticides should be applied only where they are needed and only to areas that are not accessible to children or pets.
Biological Control
A form of pest control that uses natural enemies to kill or reduce the population of a harmful organism. The goal of biological control is to achieve sustainable insect pest management with a minimum use of non-organic materials. Biological control is most effective when used to manage regular, predictable pest populations. It is a knowledge-intensive strategy that requires a thorough understanding of the pest, its life cycle, and its interactions with the environment.
Biocontrol agents can be predators, parasitoids or pathogens. In general, natural enemies that are adapted to local conditions and that attack specific pest species are most useful. These are known as classical biological controls. Biological control can also include non-living organisms such as soil microorganisms, fungi and bacteria. In horticulture, biocontrol is most commonly used to control plant diseases.
Preventive biological control focuses on intervention early in the pest’s life cycle before it becomes damaging. This type of management is most successful with insects, and works best when the pest is predictable. It can be particularly effective for ornamental plants, which have a low tolerance for visual damage.
Remedial biological control aims to quickly reduce a pest outbreak after it reaches damaging levels, similar to chemical pesticide treatments. This type of biological control is most common for fruit and vegetable crops.
Augmentative biological control focuses on increasing the number or effectiveness of existing natural enemies, often through mass production in insectaries and periodic releases. This is most common in greenhouses, nurseries, and some field crop areas (e.g., aphid suppression in vegetables and fruit).
In this method, the biocontrol agent is adapted to local conditions and attacks specific pest species. Proper identification of the pest is critical to ensure that the correct natural enemy is selected and purchased for release.
Because of their specialized adaptations, many biological control agents are host-specific. For example, the parasitic wasps that feed on caterpillars and thrips, and the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki, are only effective against a few species of caterpillars and thrips. Consequently, it is important to select the proper biological control agent for the pests being managed, as well as provide habitat that will attract and support these natural enemies.
Chemical Control
Chemical control involves the use of toxic substances to manage pests. These include herbicides (to kill weeds), insecticides (to kill insects) and fungicides (to kill fungi). Often, these chemicals have been developed to target specific organisms that are considered pests.
This type of pest control can be very effective. However, it is important to note that chemical control can also have negative impacts on the environment and human health. Therefore, it is best used as a last resort when other management options have been exhausted.
There are many different types of chemical pesticides, and they all work in a slightly different way. Some merely deter or confuse pests, while others are specifically toxic to the targeted organism. The most commonly used pesticides are based on synthetic compounds. Other organic and natural substances can be used as pesticides as well, such as lime sulfur, wood ash, sulfate of ammonia and bitumen (derived from petroleum).
Each type of pesticide has its own active ingredient that is responsible for its killing activity. Before pesticides are made available for sale, they must undergo testing to determine how much of the active ingredient it takes to kill a laboratory rat. This number is known as the lethal dose (LD 50).
In some cases, beneficial micro-organisms can be introduced to help control a pest problem. These organisms can compete with or parasitize the harmful organisms, and they may also benefit the plant in some way. For example, nematodes such as Nematodria lanii can be used to eliminate mites and other soil organisms that feed on tomato plants. Other nematodes, such as Heterorhabditis bacteriophora, can be used to reduce populations of the green June beetle grub.
Other types of organic and natural pest control methods are heat and cold treatments, microbial controls and physical controls. In addition, careful selection of plants that are adapted to your growing region and proper plant placement will greatly reduce the need for pest control measures. Ideally, pest control should be accomplished without the need for treatment. However, if preventative measures are not successful, carefully and accurately identify both the pest and host plant, then follow a treatment strategy.
