Sanitation practices help prevent and suppress many pests. They include storing food in tightly sealed containers, removing garbage regularly, and keeping work areas clean.
Some plants, animals, and materials resist pests better than others. Using resistant varieties can reduce the need for more intensive control measures. Contact Columbia MO Pest Control now!
Taking steps to prevent infestations can save time, money, and headaches in the long run. However, prevention alone is not enough for complete pest control.
Prevention
A proactive approach can avoid many pest problems. Prevention is often less expensive than eradication treatments and is the best option for maintaining a pest-free environment.
Routine inspections help detect pest issues before they develop into problems, allowing preventative actions to be taken. Inspections can also identify conditions that attract pests, such as moisture, food, or shelter.
Pests like rodents, cockroaches, and insects can pose serious health and safety concerns. They can spread diseases, trigger allergic reactions, contaminate food, and exacerbate asthma or other respiratory problems. Pests can also damage property, such as by chewing through wood and other materials, leaving droppings, or leaving gnaw marks.
Preventative measures can include sealing entry points, preventing waste accumulation, and trimming vegetation around buildings. Pests can exploit even the smallest gaps and cracks, so regular inspections are important to catch issues before they become infestations.
In addition to these proactive steps, incorporating cultural practices can also decrease a pest population. Insects, for example, are attracted to sugary sweet foods and liquids, so keeping food and drinks in sealed containers can help deter them. Other measures that can be implemented are putting trash in covered containers, avoiding over-stuffing dumpsters, and using odor-blocking garbage bags.
If preventative measures don’t work, then eradication treatments are needed to eliminate pests at the source. These treatments can include baits and traps, as well as more targeted applications of low-risk dusts and chemicals. In all cases, pesticides should be used sparingly and with care, and always according to the label instructions and warnings.
Pest control professionals should have a good understanding of the local insect life cycle and what attracts them to a location so that they can implement effective strategies for pest management. For example, to decrease soil-borne fungus gnats and pupating thrips larvae, early releases of the predatory mite Stratiolaelaps can be effective, as can low-temperature and low oxygen treatments for large collections. These methods are generally considered safer and more environmentally conscious than the previous options of heavy metal pesticides or fumigants.
Suppression
Pests are more than just a nuisance they can cause property damage, spoil crops and lead to health problems like Lyme disease and mosquito borne diseases. They also carry bacteria such as Salmonella and Hantavirus. Pest infestations can put you, your family and your employees at risk of disease and contamination. Preventing pests from getting into buildings or crops starts with good sanitation practices and keeping the area free of food, water and shelter.
Some organisms are better adapted to their environment and less vulnerable to pest attacks than others. Using resistant varieties of plants, wood, and animals can reduce the amount of pest control required. Chemicals produced by a host plant or animal can repel or prevent pests from attacking them, interfere with the pest’s life cycle or limit their ability to reproduce. Pheromones can also be used to influence insect behavior.
Cultural and physical barriers can be effective in some situations. Netting over small fruits, screening in greenhouses and mulch to inhibit weed growth can help keep insects off of crops. Plowing, crop rotation, cleaning of tillage and greenhouse equipment and management of manure can decrease opportunities for pests to develop. Sanitation practices include garbage collection, reducing trash piles and the frequency of pickup, and avoiding the use of contaminated seeds or transplants. In greenhouses, pest harborage can be reduced by adjusting airflow and lighting, and keeping the greenhouse clean of plant debris.
Biological controls are predators, parasitoids and pathogens that limit pest populations. These organisms may be conserved and introduced when needed, or mass reared and released on a seasonal or inundative basis. The release of parasitic wasps that attack greenhouse whitefly, beneficial mites that suppress orchard pests and nematodes that control soil grubs are biological control agents available for purchase and commercial application.
When preventive measures are ineffective or too labor intensive, chemical controls can be employed to reduce the pest population below damaging levels. Pesticides are usually used as a last resort, after all preventive efforts have been exhausted. The choice of which product and when to apply them is based on pest biology and behavior, limitations placed on the application site, tolerance for injury to non-target species and economics.
Eradication
Pests are undesirable organisms, such as insects, fungi, nematodes, weeds, or vertebrate animals that impact human health and/or economic interests. They can displace or destroy crops, landscapes, and native species, as well as contaminate food and water supplies. Pests can also degrade buildings, homes, and work sites. In addition, they can alter soil health, nutrient content, and availability, fire regimes, available moisture, and other environmental factors to negatively affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
Prevention is the most desirable method of managing a pest problem. Monitoring a field, garden, building, or other area can help identify pests and their damage before they become a serious nuisance. Monitoring can also reveal what conditions are favorable for pest establishment and growth, which helps determine whether or not control is necessary.
Suppression methods prevent pests by restricting their activity and inhibiting population growth in existing infestations. Quickly applying control measures while populations are low suppresses pest growth and often limits the damage they cause.
Eradication is the most difficult goal to achieve in outdoor pest situations, as it can be impossible to completely remove a pest from an environment where it is adapted to survive. Eradication is often attempted, however, when a foreign pest is accidentally introduced to an area and becomes invasive (such as Mediterranean fruit fly, gypsy moth, or fire ants).
Biological control uses natural enemies—predatory insects, pathogens, or parasitoids—to manage pests. These natural enemies are usually produced and released at the proper time in the enemy and pest life cycles to effectively control a pest. This is one of the safest and most environmentally responsible insect birth control methods available, and it has been used extensively to manage pests that threaten people’s health, such as fruit flies and disease-transmitting mosquitoes.
Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is an ecosystem-based strategy that can be used in urban, agricultural, or wildland and natural areas to reduce the risks of pests and their damage. Monitoring a site can identify which organisms are problematic, and determining pest tolerance levels can help you select the best control method to keep pest numbers and damage below unacceptable levels.
Treatment
When pests invade your home or business, they not only cause damage but also pose health risks. For example, rats can gnaw on wires and spread diseases such as hantavirus, leptospirosis and salmonella. Flies and mosquitoes can transmit a variety of diseases including malaria, encephalitis and hantavirus.
When prevention and suppression aren’t enough, treatment may be necessary to eradicate a problem. This includes targeted spraying, baiting, and dusting using a wide range of products depending on the pest and your specific needs.
Typically, a thorough inspection is conducted before a treatment plan is devised and implemented. This helps determine the extent of an infestation and locate entry points. During an inspection, pest control technicians will identify conducive conditions that are inviting to the pests and offer suggestions to reduce these. For example, a reputable company will advise clients to keep garbage in tightly sealed containers and to regularly remove any standing water. They can also suggest ways to repair leaky pipes and to regularly vacuum or sweep high moisture areas.
Once a treatment plan is in place, pest control professionals will implement it by targeting indoor and outdoor pests. This may include spraying, baiting and dusting as well as trapping or placing gels. Infestations of some pests can be difficult to eliminate and require multiple treatments or even fumigation. For instance, termite infestations can take months to eradicate and are often complicated by underlying issues such as moisture.
It’s important to remember that preventative maintenance is just as important as eradicating an existing pest infestation. A reputable pest management company will offer maintenance programs that involve routine inspections, removing any nests, blocking access points and re-baiting. In addition, they will recommend environmental modifications that can be implemented to reduce the attraction of pests such as reducing drain line backups, addressing grease pit pumping and lowering the amount of moisture in areas that are susceptible to condensation. By performing these preventive measures, a property owner can greatly minimize pest problems and prevent infestations from recurring. This is sometimes referred to as integrated pest management.