When choosing a pest control company, look for one that focuses on your specific type of infestation. Ask for credentials that show they hold proper licensing and training for the chemicals they use.
Action thresholds exist for many outdoor pest populations, forcing control when their numbers reach unacceptable levels. Preventive measures include eliminating shelter and food sources, regularly removing debris, and using nematodes (microscopic worms). Click the Pest Control In Bakersfield to learn more.
The first goal of pest control is to avoid or remove the conditions that lead to an infestation. For example, keeping windows and doors closed can prevent pests like mice or ants from finding their way inside. Clutter and debris should be removed from the outside of buildings to provide fewer places for pests to hide. Unsealed cracks and crevices should be caulked. Open trash containers should be replaced with those that have lids to keep flies, hornets and other pests from infesting them.
Eliminating food, water and shelter sources is also essential to preventing pest problems. Food should be stored in sealed plastic or glass containers, and garbage should be removed regularly. Overgrown weeds and grass should be cut regularly, and wood piles moved away from homes. These steps can also help reduce the number of rodents and other pests around a house, reducing damage and health concerns.
If the avoiding and blocking methods of pest control don’t work, a more aggressive approach is required. The IPM strategy emphasizes that treatments should be tailored to specific pest problems rather than a broad treatment program. For example, a homeowner with a cockroach problem should receive a treatment that includes baits and gels instead of spraying an entire building. This targeted approach lessens the risk of off-target impacts and allows customers to see that pest controls are working.
Using biological methods for pest control is another option that is environmentally responsible and can be used in conjunction with other methods. These include natural predators, parasites and pathogens, which can all be effective in eliminating some types of pests.
The final step of pest control is suppression, which involves reducing the number of insects or other pests to an acceptable level. This often goes hand in hand with prevention and eradication, as the aim is to get rid of pests before they cause significant problems or damage. In outdoor situations, eradication may be possible for persistent pests such as Mediterranean fruit fly or gypsy moth, but it is less common in enclosed areas where the removal of one type of pest can lead to the reemergence of other unwanted species.
Suppression
Pests are organisms (insects, weeds, bacteria, fungi, pathogens, vertebrate animals) that damage or degrade crops, flowers, lawns, food, and other plants; displace desirable species; and adversely affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They may also cause a loss of human health, welfare, or economic well-being. Pest control consists of three main activities: prevention, suppression, and eradication. Prevention is the most cost-effective and environmentally sound way to manage pests. It involves keeping pest populations below damaging levels through changes in management practices and preventing the spread of the pests to other areas. Suppression is used to quickly reduce a pest population to acceptable levels after the pests have reached damaging numbers. Suppression tactics include cultural controls, physical barriers, and chemical pesticides.
Cultural Controls include avoiding over-fertilizing fields, proper crop rotation, removing infested plant material, cleaning greenhouse and tillage equipment, and managing irrigation schedules to prevent prolonged periods of high relative humidity, which encourage disease pests. Physical Barriers can be as simple as putting up a bird net or spraying plants with a repellent. Plant-parasitic nematodes, which kill harmful soil grubs, are also effective.
Biological Controls consist of conserving and/or releasing natural enemies to keep pest populations below damaging levels. Examples of this practice, which is available to homeowners as well as commercial growers, include introducing predators to orchards, releasing the mite predator Solenopsis geminata to reduce spider mites in fruit trees, and spreading nematodes such as Steinernema carpocapsae, which kills grubs, to gardens.
Chemical Pesticides are used when prevention and suppression are not enough to control the pests. They can be sprayed on or around the plants in the field or housed in a greenhouse. Commonly used chemical pesticides are neem oil, azadirachtin, pyrethrins, and imidacloprid.
Monitoring pests is a critical activity to determine the success or failure of any corrective actions. In addition to assessing the presence and severity of pests, monitoring includes measuring plant growth and quality, observing the behavior of insects and birds, looking for signs of disease or insect parasites, and checking for resistance to pesticides. Monitoring can be as simple as counting the number of bugs found in a garden or as complex as interpreting data from a sophisticated computer model that takes into account all the variables involved in managing a pest problem.
Eradication
Eradication is the final stage of pest control. This word has several meanings in the dictionary, including: “to pull up or out by the roots, uproot, remove completely, extirpate.” Eradication of a pest problem should not be confused with elimination. Elimination is a long process that requires repeated steps of suppression, monitoring and control to prevent the reappearance of a specific pest population.
Physical
Traps, netting and decoys are examples of physical pest control solutions. These are generally easier to set up than chemical controls and can be effective in keeping pests away from areas where food is prepared. Physical methods are also less likely to introduce chemicals into the environment.
Biological
Biological controls include the use of natural enemies such as parasites and predators to manage pest populations. This approach often takes time to be successful because there is usually a lag between the increase in the number of pests and the appearance of the enemies that will manage them.
Chemical
Chemical pest control is more common than biological methods and includes repellents that keep pests away and insecticides that kill them. Some of these chemicals are designed to be safe for people to handle and touch, while others can pose health risks if they come into contact with the skin or eyes.
For example, roaches can be controlled by using baits such as cockroach motels or rodent bait stations that contain poisons that are safely contained to minimize the risk of people handling them. Similarly, mosquitoes can be managed by draining any puddles that collect in the yard and by maintaining a regular schedule of changing the water in birdbaths and other ornamental ponds that may harbor larvae.
When working with any pest control company, be sure to read the labels of any chemicals they use in your home. This will provide information on the safest way to apply them and the proper procedure for disposing of leftover pesticides. It will also tell you what to do if you become ill after handling the product and what precautions should be taken.
Monitoring
The monitoring of pest control activities is the key component of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). It allows the pest manager to identify pest populations and to determine when they reach damaging levels. It also helps to evaluate how well control tactics have worked and provides site history information that assists in anticipating future problems. This is done through visual inspection, trapping, and the use of a variety of other detection devices.
Pests can damage food through consumption and physical contamination with rodent droppings, insect parts and feces; through contamination with disease causing agents carried on the external surfaces of pests and through direct damage to the food itself and its packaging. Pests that pose a threat to food processing environments include small mammals, like rats and mice; crawling insects, like cockroaches and ants; flying insects, such as houseflies, blow flies, fruit flies and moths; and birds.
Monitoring can be done using a variety of methods including visual inspection, trapping and the use of other detection devices such as sticky boards, fly traps and pheromone traps. These can be passive traps that rely on the natural behavior of the target pest to capture them, or baited traps that contain a attractant that entices the pest. Monitoring should be performed on a regular basis, and the results should be trended over time to see if the monitoring actions are effective or need to be changed.
In the case of a pesticide, a record of the type of pest, how many there are and where they are in their life cycle will help to make sure that the correct type of chemical is used and that it is applied at the right time and place. This will prevent the use of unnecessary chemicals and minimize the chance of resistance development.
Sampling can be a complex task as it requires a balance between cost and benefit and the ability to adapt sampling during the growing season in response to changing conditions, pest behavior or the needs of individual fields. It is also important to structure the application of toxic substances so that they take advantage of complementarities provided by natural agro-ecosystem processes to limit negative spillovers.