Pests can be a nuisance, like mice or rats, or cause property damage, such as termites. They can also carry diseases, like hantavirus or leptospirosis.
Sanitation practices help prevent and suppress some pests by limiting their food sources or habitats. Physical methods include barriers, screens, traps and removing nests. Contact Nature Shield Pest Solutions for specialized services.
Prevention involves keeping pests from getting a foothold in your property. This can include sealing cracks in buildings, practicing good hygiene (including cleaning floors, walls, and windows), and storing food in tightly sealed containers. Other preventive measures include removing weeds and repairing damaged items in gardens, and using barriers like fences to keep insects and rodents away from crops.
Some pests are deterred by odors, such as the gnawing and suckage of rodents. Others are repelled by heat, light, or chemicals, such as the spraying of aphids with fungicides. Still others are harmed by natural enemies, such as predators, parasites, nematodes, and pathogens. These enemies can be introduced to control a pest population, though there is often a time lag between the increase in enemies and the decrease in pests.
Many pests are attracted to a site because of the availability of food, water, or shelter. Some are also attracted to a specific scent, such as the odor of human sweat. Other factors that affect pests include climate and weather conditions, natural enemies, and the presence of natural barriers, such as soil types or vegetation.
Some pests can spread diseases, such as hantavirus, leptospirosis, and salmonella. They can stain or damage buildings, plants, and personal belongings. They may even sting or bite people, animals, and crops. Other pests can cause allergies and sensitivities, such as ants, bed bugs, flies, cockroaches, cluster flies, wasps, mud dauber wasps, and wood-boring bees.
If you notice that a pest is present, it’s important to take action quickly. Some pests, such as a few flies or mice, don’t require immediate attention; however, if they are seen regularly and in increasing numbers, professional treatment may be required. A professional will evaluate the situation and determine which of the following active control methods is best:
Suppression
In some pest situations, prevention is not possible or not desired and control measures are needed to reduce a pest population below damaging or intolerable levels. Suppression is the process of reducing pests to this level and can be done through chemical, biological or cultural methods. Suppression is often a joint goal with prevention because pest populations can build up quickly.
Controlling pests with chemicals requires a great deal of care and skill to ensure that only the target pest is affected. Many pesticides also affect other organisms in the environment, especially nontarget plants and animals. This can lead to the need for frequent applications and may require extra scouting to make sure that the proper dosage is applied. In addition, pesticides are sometimes ineffective because the target pest is resistant to the substance being used.
Some kinds of insects, weeds, and pathogens can be controlled using biocontrol agents that are introduced to the landscape as living organisms or available as microbial insecticides (see Activity on this page). These organisms can be very specific, attacking only the pest species they are targeting; in other cases, such as with parasitoids and plant-infecting nematodes, they can attack all the earlier stages of a pest rather than just its adult forms.
Other controls involve changing the physical environment to discourage pests or to provide habitat that is unfavorable for them. Examples include netting over small fruits, screening in greenhouses, and mulch to inhibit weed growth beneath desirable crops. Controls that change the amount of sunlight or the temperature of an area are also important in some pest management.
Cultural controls are those that disrupt a pest’s environment or prevent its movement. These can be as simple as tillage, crop rotation, cleaning of greenhouse or tillage equipment, and effective manure management. Some are more involved, such as agroforestry practices that create buffer strips around fields or the use of beneficial insects and plants that attract natural enemies of the targeted pest.
Some pests are persistent and require continuous control, such as cockroaches or termites. Other pests are migratory or sporadic and need only control on an as-needed basis, such as mosquitoes or hummingbirds.
Eradication
A successful eradication program must involve rigorous research, development, and evaluation. The word eradicate, which came into English in the 16th century, stems from the Latin eradicare, meaning to pull up by the roots; it is related to such English words as radical and radish. Despite being used to describe the elimination of microbes such as smallpox and rinderpest, eradication is not synonymous with extinction (Dowdle and Hopkins 1998). The terms control, elimination, and eradication are often used interchangeably.
Integrated Pest Management
Integrated pest management combines preventive and suppression techniques, using less toxic methods to minimize harm to people and the environment. It also promotes sustainable agriculture in the long run. Previously, pest control relied heavily on synthetic chemical pesticides. However, such chemicals strongly harm human health and nature and can lead to resistance in target organisms. The goal of integrating pest management is to minimize this damage and control acceptable infestation levels rather than eradicate undesired populations entirely.
Preventive techniques include the removal of food, water, and shelter from pests. This includes removing or trimming overgrown shrubbery, which provides hiding spots for rodents, and sealing cracks or holes that pests might use to enter your home. It also means avoiding over-watering and keeping compost piles dry.
IPM also involves monitoring pest populations to detect early warning signs. Extensive monitoring enables pest population thresholds to be set, at which point action needs to be taken. This might involve setting baits to capture or kill pests, or it could involve using biological controls such as sterile insect technology to eliminate male pests (and their fertile offspring), which are then released in nature to reproduce naturally.
Physical and mechanical control methods kill or block pests out, or make their environment unsuitable. They can include traps for rodents, mulching around plants to deprive weed seeds of sunlight, and steam sterilization of soil to destroy pathogens or fungal diseases.
If these methods are not effective, it may be necessary to use chemical pesticides. However, the chemicals must be used sparingly and with specific attention to the type of pest you’re trying to get rid of. (No blanket spraying!) They should also be applied only after environmental and preventive measures have been exhausted.
Integrated Pest Management is an excellent choice for your home or business. It’s a great way to protect your property from pests while staying green. As consumers become more aware of the dangers of pesticide chemicals and their effects on humans and nature, they’re looking for greener alternatives, and will reward businesses that offer them. Contact us to learn more about integrated pest management for your home or business.