Pests damage crops, buildings, and personal belongings (like ants and fleas). Some have a frightening or repulsive appearance and can bite or sting humans, like cockroaches, cluster flies, and house centipedes.
Natural controls, such as weather or topography, limit pest populations’ access to food and shelter. Biological control methods use natural enemies to injure or consume pests, often with a time lag. Contact Basking Ridge Pest Control now!
Prevention is a proactive approach that seeks to keep pests out of homes and businesses before they invade. It involves using a combination of practical tips and techniques to prevent pests from entering, along with treatments to repel or kill existing pests when they do show up. Prevention may also involve educational initiatives aimed at teaching people about pests, their habits and ideal habitats.
Pests thrive in areas where they can find food, water and shelter. The availability of these resources determines their numbers and impact on the environment. Geographical features such as mountains and large bodies of water limit the spread of many pests. In addition, pest populations can become established when they find a suitable roost or a place to overwinter. Pests are also affected by the abundance of predators and other organisms that control them.
While pests are usually regarded as nuisances, they can have serious adverse impacts on human health and the environment. Some, like cockroaches and dust mites, produce allergens that can trigger asthma attacks or allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. Others, such as rodents and mosquitoes, can transmit diseases.
Effective pest control is necessary to safeguard public health, protect property and maintain a wholesome lifestyle and work environment. Pests that transmit disease should be controlled by disinfecting food preparation and storage surfaces and by implementing proper sanitation practices. Pests that contaminate foods should be prevented from gaining access to food stores, warehouses and restaurants by sealing entry points.
The best approach to pest control is a combination of preventive measures and the use of treatments when necessary. This can include sealing entry points, regularly cleaning and storing food in tightly sealed containers, keeping garbage receptacles closed and removing them on time, implementing landscaping that minimizes the attraction of pests and maintaining buildings and facilities in a state of good repair.
Prevention also includes enhancing natural controls through the introduction of “natural enemies” such as parasites, predators and herbivores. This can be done by releasing a naturally occurring enemy in the area or through artificial means such as breeding and releasing larger numbers of enemies in small batches or in one large release.
Suppression
Prevention tactics keep potential pests from infesting a field or site by making it unfavorable for them to survive and thrive. Examples include using pest-free seeds or transplants; preventing water from splashing onto the leaves of desirable plants; cleaning tillage and harvest equipment between fields or operations to prevent soil transporting disease organisms; limiting access to fruit and vegetable plantings by animals (such as rabbits); and avoiding transfer of firewood that may contain insect pathogens.
Suppression tactics limit a pest population or damage to an acceptable level by making it difficult for them to survive and thrive. Some examples of suppression strategies are using netting and screens in greenhouses; applying mulch to inhibit weed growth; and removing alternate hosts for insects that are harmful to crops.
The purpose of natural enemies is to reduce the density of potential pest insects by feeding on them or parasitizing them. Examples of natural enemy species are predatory insects, parasitoids, and pathogens. Increasing the number of natural enemies is done by conserving existing ones, introducing them from other locations, or mass-rearing and releasing them (also called augmentative biological control).
Biological controls can be extremely complex since many predators and parasitoids can feed on or paralyze multiple species of pests. However, the effectiveness of individual species is limited by their ability to find and kill the pests they target. Consequently, different species of natural enemies must be introduced or released to target the same types of pests in order to be effective.
Some examples of biological controls are the predatory mite Amblysieus swirskii that can feed on thrips, whiteflies, and broad mites; the nematode Steinernema carpocapsa that can consume the grubs of turfgrass and ornamental plants; and the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis that is effective against caterpillars and thrips (Bacillus thuringiensis subsp. kurstaki) and white grubs (Bacillus thuringiensis var. galleriae). When a pest infestation is found, monitoring and assessment (also called inspection, scouting or sampling) is used to detect pest activity. This is an essential part of IPM, and it includes assessing the effects of avoidance and prevention tactics, as well as identifying the occurrence and severity of pest damage.
Detection
Pest populations often build up to a point where the damage they cause becomes unacceptable. At this point, the objective shifts from prevention to suppression. Suppression efforts usually include a combination of control tactics. These tactics might be spraying with insecticides, baits, lures, or even biological control agents. Depending on the situation, trapping may also be used. Whether it’s an insect, weed, or rodent infestation, the key to successful management is to detect it early, before the pest population explodes.
The most common method of detection for a majority of pest species is through visual inspections. Regular, comprehensive visual inspections help prevent small problems from escalating into large ones.
For some pests, such as invasive ants or fruit flies, a specialized trapping program is necessary. With homeowner cooperation, traps are placed around homes to catch pests as they are entering the area. Typically, these traps contain special insect pheromones or color attractants that lure the pests to them. When a pest is captured, the homeowners are notified so that the pest can be disposed of quickly before it has an opportunity to multiply and become an established invasive species.
Other methods of detection for pests are through monitoring environmental conditions. For example, tracking the temperature and moisture levels within a crop can provide important clues as to when an insect outbreak is likely to occur. Observing the activity of natural enemies can help identify which beneficial organisms are keeping pest populations in check and which areas might require more intensive pest control.
In many situations, pest monitoring is site-specific or crop-specific and will require specialized knowledge of pest biology, habits, and life cycles to be effective. Computer vision technologies can be used to accurately distinguish different pest species, even if they look similar (see pest identification). This accuracy reduces the need for excessive use of chemicals and allows farmers to apply control tactics that are more appropriate to the pests’ needs.
Maintaining sanitary indoor environments is a must for effective pest detection and control. The presence of rodents can be indicated by faecal pellets, urine stains, greasy rub marks, gnawed materials, nesting activities, and corpses. Keeping shelving and cabinets clear of plant material, and creating sanitary perimeters with organized layouts, helps reduce the labour and cost of inspections and detection.
Treatment
As the name implies, treatment is a reactive pest control method that involves servicing an area where pests are already present. A pest control technician will thoroughly inspect the premises and identify the infestation sources. Then they will apply treatments to eradicate the pests. Treatments can be chemical or physical. Chemical pesticides are poisonous substances used to kill the target organism or make it unfit for use. These are very dangerous and should only be used by trained professionals. Examples include herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, which are widely used in agriculture to protect crops from disease and weeds, and household pesticides such as cockroach killers or rodent baits. Physical traps, netting and barriers can also be effective deterrents.
Some pests can be controlled using cultural practices. These are things you can do to make the environment less suitable for the pest, such as avoiding overcrowding and poor sanitation that makes food or water more attractive; using good housekeeping, such as sealing rubbish bins; growing plants that are resistant to particular pests; and removing the debris that attracts certain pests.
Another approach is to encourage the natural enemies of the pest. This is called biological pest control and can be a very effective tool in Integrated Pest Management. However, it is a long-term process that may require extensive research on the biology of the pest and potential natural enemies to ensure that the right species are released at the right time.
Eradication is a rare goal in outdoor pest situations, but it can be a necessary one for enclosed environments such as domestic dwellings; schools and offices; and health care, food production, storage and preparation facilities. Examples of eradication programs include those against Mediterranean fruit fly, gypsy moth and fire ants.
Many pesticides disrupt the balance of nature by killing or harming the beneficial organisms that coexist with the pests, as well as other animals and plants in the environment. This is why it is important to select the least toxic, yet effective, chemicals and apply them in ways that minimize disruption. For example, spot applications in areas of high pest density and treatment of alternating strips within an area reduce the impact on natural enemies.
