Pest Control Made Easy: Basic Tips and Tricks

Pests disrupt natural processes and pose a threat to humans by contaminating food products or by spreading diseases such as leptospirosis, salmonella, and hantavirus. They can also damage structures and cause fire hazards by chewing wires.

Threshold-based decisions should be made regarding whether or not to control a pest and what control method to use. Control methods include prevention, suppression and eradication. Contact Pest Control Nampa for professional help.

Prevention is a way of controlling pests before they cause damage, and it is the goal of most people when it comes to managing their own homes or business premises. It involves eliminating the conditions that attract pests in the first place. For example, ants can smell food from a distance, so the best way to deter them is to store foods in odor-blocking and securely sealed containers. Garbage should also be regularly removed from the premises, and clutter should be eliminated as much as possible. In hospitality, retail and food preparation settings, cleaning up spills and crumbs as soon as they occur, repairing leaky plumbing and putting out traps for rodents can help prevent pest problems.

The Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to pest control focuses on prevention primarily. It monitors pests and their activities, and if the monitoring, identification and action thresholds are met, less risky pest controls such as biological control, changing cultural practices or habitat manipulation are used before resorting to more aggressive pesticides. If these methods are ineffective, IPM programs then evaluate the tolerance level of the pest, and then choose the proper control method.

Eradication is a rarely used method for outdoor pest situations, but it may be required when specific types of pests are not acceptable in indoor environments such as hospitals, retail or food processing. These areas generally require a higher degree of hygiene, and there are strict health standards that cannot be violated by the presence of certain pests. These include physical contamination of food products by rodent droppings, insect parts and intestinal worms; contamination with disease-causing bacteria from the pests themselves; and direct damage to buildings and their services.

Suppression

Pests interfere with human activities by contaminating food, destroying property or spreading disease. The goal of pest control is to reduce their numbers to an acceptable level while causing as little harm as possible to people, property or the environment. Many organisms may be considered pests, including insects, rodents, weeds and birds. There are three methods of pest control: prevention, suppression and eradication. Prevention is the preferred method in most situations, but sometimes it is impossible or impractical to prevent a problem from occurring, and pests must be controlled. Suppression involves reducing the number of pests to an acceptable level, and is most often accomplished through a combination of tactics such as monitoring, habitat manipulation, cultural controls and use of resistant varieties.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a holistic approach to pest control that relies on long-term prevention rather than short-term chemical interventions. It uses natural pest control methods such as biological control, changing cultural practices, habitat manipulation and use of resistant varieties before resorting to pesticides. Pesticides are used only when monitoring indicates they are needed according to established guidelines, and are applied in a manner that minimizes risks to humans, beneficial organisms and the environment.

The most important step to effective pest control is learning about the pests you have and your options for controlling them. Then take action to remove their food, water or shelter — clean up trash and debris around your home, store foods in sealed containers, fix leaky plumbing and make sure your garbage is removed regularly. Also, don’t let water collect in trays under house plants or in sinks or bathtubs.

Eradication

Unlike prevention, which is about stopping a pest from getting to a level where it causes damage, eradication means destroying an entire population of the pest. This is the goal of a few pest control methods, such as spraying plants with carbon dioxide or nitrogen (which are inert gases) to deprive them of oxygen and cause them to die. This is a common technique in museums and greenhouses to kill insects that have invaded sensitive plants.

Many invasive foreign plants are targeted for eradication because they have proven to be detrimental to agriculture and natural habitats. For example, invasive foreign weeds often overrun cropland and taint crops such as hay. They also occupy riparian corridors, estuaries and forests, crowding out native species and creating monocultures that alter ecosystem function. Similarly, the Sutter County Pest Eradication Program targets weeds that have been shown to be a significant threat to local agricultural and wildland resources.

Eradication strategies are usually complex and require a thorough understanding of the organism’s biology and ecology. The reproductive rate of an invasive species, for instance, is highly variable throughout the world and depends on a complex interplay among microbes in their human and intermediary hosts. It is crucial that the eradication strategy take into account this variability in order to be successful.

The use of microbial pesticides such as the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, is another form of eradication. These microbial pesticides are sprayed on soil and, when ingested by the insect, they release a toxin that kills it from the inside. Because of their low toxicity to humans and animals, microbial pesticides are a good alternative to conventional pesticides.

Other forms of microbial pesticides include parasitic nematodes, which are microscopic worms that live in the soil. When sprayed on the soil, these nematodes will kill unwanted insect populations such as fleas, grubs and gnats. However, nematodes do not have a long shelf life and must be applied regularly to remain effective.

Mechanical or Physical Controls

Many gardeners want to avoid pesticides, but the reality is that they often need to take steps to control unwanted insects and other critters. The goal of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is to use the least-toxic methods possible to achieve desirable results. This means finding ways to kill or keep pests at levels that do not pose unacceptable esthetic, health or economic harm. The decision of when to take action depends on threshold levels, which are based on a number of factors, including frequency and duration of pest sightings, severity of damage, and the cost of control measures.

Physical or mechanical control methods either kill the pest directly or make the environment unsuitable for infestation. Examples include traps for rodents, mulches for weed management, steam soil sterilization for disease control in vegetable crops, and barriers such as screens to exclude birds or insect pests from fruit trees. Structural pests such as earwigs can be deterred by covering their holes with diatomaceous earth, which is made from finely ground skeletons of fossil algae and has sharp edges that scratch and dehydrate soft-bodied insects.

Cultural control involves changing the pest’s environment to reduce availability of food, water and shelter. For example, yellow-fever mosquitoes breed in swamps and stagnant pools of water, which can be controlled by draining these areas. Cultural methods also involve altering irrigation practices to minimize excess water, which can lead to root rot and weed problems.

Biological or natural enemies are organisms that attack and kill pests, such as parasitoids and predators. These can be introduced intentionally into the environment, or encouraged by growing plants that repel or attract natural enemies. This approach requires extensive research into the biology of pests and their natural enemies, as well as care in selection and release to ensure that beneficial effects are achieved with minimum risk to people or other animals.

Natural Forces

Natural forces such as climate, predators, parasitoids, nematodes and competitors can affect pest populations. They may prevent them from growing or limit their reproduction, cause disease or death or reduce their availability as food or shelter. Some of these natural enemies can be introduced to a crop, and some methods can be used to supplement their action (natural enemy release). This includes releasing relatively few natural enemies at the right time of year or literally millions at once (inundative release) and changing management practices to better support them (habitat manipulation).

Plant pathogens can also infect pests and slow their growth or damage their cells. Insects can be infected with bacteria, fungi, protozoans and viruses that reduce their rate of feeding or kill them. Nematodes (microscopic worms) can attack insects that damage crops by injecting them with a toxic bacterium.

Environmental conditions such as temperature and moisture influence pests’ emergence, growth, development, and reproduction. Some landscape features, such as mountains and bodies of water, restrict the movement of pests. Pest populations typically thrive only as long as their roosts, food and water supplies are available.

Threshold-based decision-making means observing and monitoring pests to determine whether their numbers have reached or are about to reach unacceptable levels. It also involves choosing the most appropriate control measures and applying them with minimal disturbance to the environment.

For example, a few flies or caterpillars in the vegetable garden probably won’t require control, but a wave of mosquitoes might. Monitoring and scouting can help identify the best physical, biological and chemical control methods. In the case of chemicals, spot applications and the use of less persistent materials minimize contact between beneficial organisms and pesticides.