Pests are animals that damage food and the environment. They include small mammals and crawling and flying insects. Click https://killianpestcontrol.com/ to learn more.
Control measures can be preventive or curative. They aim to reduce pest numbers to an acceptable level with minimum harm to everything else.
Eradication may be the goal in enclosed environments (e.g., operating rooms in health care facilities). Biological pest control uses nature to manage pests. This can be as simple as releasing nematodes to kill aphids or as complex as using microbes engineered from bacteria.
Prevention
Various techniques can be used to reduce or eliminate pests without using chemical control agents. These prevention methods typically focus on the environment, such as barriers to pests’ access to food, water and shelter, or keeping environments clean and dry. Prevention strategies also include the use of natural enemies or parasites, such as nematodes. This approach is commonly referred to as biological control.
Generally, the best control is achieved through prevention and suppression. In some situations, eradication is also a goal. However, eradicating an established pest population is much more difficult than controlling it in the first place. Eradication is often attempted in outdoor settings, such as fruit or ornamental tree crops. It is less common in enclosed areas such as dwellings, schools and offices.
Prevention Techniques
The most important step in pest management is preventing pest infestations. In most cases, the best way to prevent a pest problem is to make your environment unwelcoming to them. This includes sealing entry points, such as cracks and crevices, keeping surfaces and debris clean, and storing food in sealed containers.
In addition, it is important to understand the life cycles of pests so that you can anticipate their activity and take steps to prevent them from reaching a critical stage that would require control measures. Many pests go through several developmental stages before becoming a problem, and it is important to be able to identify eggs, larvae, pupae, adults and nymphs in order to determine the correct treatment method.
Other factors that influence pest populations include climate, natural enemies, natural barriers, the availability of food and water, and the presence or absence of overwintering sites. Many of these factors cannot be controlled by humans, but there are things that can be done to make your environment less attractive to pests, such as avoiding roosting sites close to human habitations and providing natural barriers with the help of natural features such as mountains and large bodies of water.
Museum buildings and collections are subject to the same environmental conditions that encourage pests in other fields, but they also face additional problems, such as air vents bringing in insects and rodents, and staff introducing them on equipment or merchandise. Good building design and maintenance can reduce both of these problems, while a routine program of scouting and monitoring (such as daily walks around the museum) can help spot pests early. In some cases, a quarantine and specialized treatment program can protect valuable objects from pest infestation during transport or storage.
Suppression
When pests are present in the garden or landscape, they must be controlled before damage occurs. The methods used for suppression include cultural practices, physical barriers, biological controls and chemical pesticides. Threshold-based decision-making based on scouting and monitoring help determine when to use these techniques.
Insects and other pests are generally more active in warm weather, but they can be suppressed by cold temperatures, rain, hail or snow. Plants, fungi and vertebrates that feed on pests may reduce their numbers as well. Changes in soil conditions, such as water availability or pH, can affect pest activity and population levels as well.
Some varieties of plants, trees, wood, and other materials resist pests better than others. Changing landscape management practices to select more resistant species can reduce the need for control.
Predation, parasitism and other natural processes — referred to as “natural enemies” by scientists — can control insect and mite pests. Using landscaping techniques that encourage the development of natural enemies, such as planting flowers and vegetables that attract beneficial insects, is called conservation biological control. In some cases, the introduction of natural enemies that are bred in laboratories is needed. This method, called classical or importation biological control, is usually reserved for scientific practitioners.
Diseases and other pathogens can also suppress pest populations. Insects, as well as some weeds and plant-parasitic nematodes, are often infected with bacteria, viruses, protozoans or fungi that slow or stop their growth or reproduction. These pathogens can be introduced into the landscape as living organisms or engineered into a microbial insecticide and applied to soil.
Chemical pesticides can be effective in controlling some insect and mite pests when the correct application technique is followed. However, the timing of the chemical application is extremely important to achieve the best results.
In addition, the environmental conditions that allowed a pest problem to develop must be addressed in order to prevent future infestations. This includes inspecting and scouting for pests, identifying the specific pests responsible, assessing severity and damage, determining the presence or absence of resistance in the pest population, monitoring netting or screens and considering tolerance for injury as part of the decision-making process (see the Thresholds page within Assessment). Also, the effectiveness of any corrective measures must be evaluated.
Eradication
Pests are unwanted organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, insects, nematodes, weeds, or vertebrate animals, that damage or disvalue crops, food stores, human buildings, lawns, gardens, and outdoor spaces. Depending on the situation, they can also threaten human health and safety.
Pest control methods focus on prevention, suppression, and eradication. Preventive measures include frequent and thorough cleaning and removal of sources of moisture, food, or shelter to prevent infestations from developing. Suppression techniques include limiting pest activity and population growth by quickly removing or restricting conditions that favor them. Eradication techniques remove pests or their eggs and feces. In some cases, destroying all adult and larval pests may be necessary to prevent re-infestation or recurrence.
Biological control, a form of natural pest control, involves introducing the pest’s natural enemies—parasites, predators, and pathogens—to target it. This reduces the pest’s population size and damage to the target crop without the use of chemicals. It can be a more sustainable pest control option than chemical pesticides, but it is slow to work and requires monitoring.
Chemical pest control uses chemicals—including sprays, baits, and traps—to kill or deter pests. These solutions can be effective and easier to apply, but they can also pose health and environmental risks upon exposure. These are also typically temporary solutions, with effects lasting only as long as the pesticide remains active.
Physical pest control includes traps, netting, and decoys. These solutions physically limit or capture the pests, and they can be effective at eliminating a number of different pest species. However, they can be more challenging to set and maintain than other pest control methods.
Other physical and mechanical pest control methods modify pest habitats or directly eliminate them. These may include digging weeds, sterilizing soil, or placing barriers to prevent pests from entering clean areas (e.g., fences, walls, and caulking).
Lastly, some pest control technologies are designed to be used in combination with other pest control measures. This is especially true of heat and cold controls, which can help reduce pests by exposing them to extreme temperatures. For example, heat treatments can eliminate bedbugs by raising their body temperature to a point at which they die.
Integrated Pest Management
Integrated pest management, or IPM, uses creative techniques to decrease dependence on chemical insecticides and other synthetic products for fighting pests in gardens, lawns, farms and any place plants are grown. These long-term solutions work in harmony to defend against insects, weeds and disease, with the goal of maintaining a healthy ecosystem.
IPM begins with a careful evaluation of each pest problem to determine whether it is worth controlling, and what control methods are most appropriate. This means learning as much about the pest as possible: its life cycle, damage potential, natural enemies and environmental conditions.
The goal of IPM is to deny pests the food, shelter, or other conditions they need to survive or reproduce. This can be done through physical barriers like screens or caulk, cultural methods such as mowing, mulching and selecting drought-tolerant plants, or biological controls such as entomopathogenic nematodes and bacteria (Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus spp.). It also means inspecting for pests, understanding their behavior and ecology, and using baits and traps in a targeted manner to get them where they don’t belong.
When pest populations reach an action threshold, IPM programs then use a mix of biological and chemical controls to manage them. This is often the best solution for homeowners and gardeners because it provides greater flexibility in when and how to use pesticides, reduces risks to human health and beneficial organisms, and can help avoid the development of resistant pests.
Biological control agents are generally less toxic than synthetic chemicals and can be applied more often, as needed, to maintain desired levels of pest population. Biological controls are typically organic and biodegradable, making them more environmentally friendly than synthetic pesticides. They can be applied through a spray, dip, or drench, and include the promotion of predators that prey on the pest species, the introduction of parasitic wasps and insects, the release of microorganisms such as fungi and nematodes, and the use of naturally occurring strains of bacteria and viruses.
When deciding on the best method for managing pests, growers and green industry professionals consider their goals for sustainability, operational flexibility and customer concerns about potential negative impacts of neonicotinoids and other broad-spectrum insecticides. By using integrated pest management techniques, plant producers and landscapers can provide their customers with beautiful, productive landscapes that are free of harmful insects and diseases.
