Pests can damage plants, animals, and homes. Control methods may include identifying and eliminating the conditions that favor their presence and keeping them at bay.
Keeping a house clean and removing waste products deprives pests of food and shelter. Checking and sealing cracks, crevices, and holes regularly also helps prevent pest entry. Contact Pest Control Malibu now!
Pest control is the practice of eliminating pests before they can cause harm. This is typically done through preventive strategies, including the use of chemical sprays and baits. Prevention strategies also include sanitation and physical controls. For example, cleaning up debris and clutter reduces places for pests to hide. It is also important to properly store food products and keep them in airtight containers.
Pests are organisms that damage property, crops, livestock or human health. They carry and spread diseases, like cockroaches, fleas, hornets and ants, contaminate food (like rats, mice and pigeons), stain or discolor fabrics (like clothes moths and flies) or trigger allergic reactions in humans (like wasps and bees). Some pests eat wood, creating rot in structures, and others destroy landscaping, like grasshoppers and termites.
The best way to prevent a pest infestation is to eliminate the pest’s entry point. This could involve modifying screens, closing doors or windows, and patching holes in walls or foundations. It is also important to check for leaky pipes and water fixtures because pests are drawn to water sources. It is recommended to inspect these areas at least once a month, and make repairs immediately as needed.
Keeping your trash can clean can also help. A full, closed trash can feels like an all-you-can-eat buffet to pests looking for food and shelter. If possible, place your large trash can in the garage or outside. It’s also a good idea to put foods into airtight, sealed containers as soon as you bring them home from the grocery store.
A variety of natural enemies of pests — predatory insects, parasitic insects and pathogens — can be used to control pest populations. These enemies can be added to the environment to supplement preventive measures, by releasing predators or pathogens, or by introducing sterile males. Weather conditions can also affect pests by affecting the growth of their host plants or encouraging them to reproduce. Cooler temperatures and lower relative humidity can slow the spread of an insect or plant disease. Some plant diseases are caused by fungal pathogens, which can be controlled with chemical or biological methods.
Suppression
The goal of suppression is to reduce pest numbers below an acceptable level without causing unacceptable damage. It is often accomplished by using a combination of prevention, biological, and chemical control methods.
The use of natural enemies—predators, parasites, pathogens, and competitors—to keep pest populations at bay is known as biological control. This includes the use of invertebrates, such as natural predators of turf pests, or microscopic nematodes that attack weeds and plant-infecting pathogens. Biological control is most effective in the field when it is targeted to specific insect species rather than the broad category of insects that may be present.
In addition, cultural controls can be used to limit pests by limiting their food, water or shelter availability. For example, modifying irrigation practices to prevent water-logging the soil can decrease root disease and weed problems in vegetables. This can be achieved by using a combination of low volume irrigation with deep perforations or by irrigating alternating strips in a field.
Pests in homes, gardens and other outdoor areas are also controlled through the use of predators and sterilisation programs. In addition, some pests are controlled in the house by sealing cracks or using caulking to prevent entry and escape.
Suppression strategies include monitoring and assessing pest population levels, environmental conditions, and the status of the crop. This can be done by inspecting the field, scouting the garden or house and documenting pest damage. Injury and treatment thresholds, which are the levels of pest damage below which action is required, should be established for key pests.
Preventive measures should be utilised whenever possible, including sanitation to remove pests from equipment and soil, planting of resistant varieties, and proper storage of materials to prevent contamination. When pesticides are needed, they should be selected carefully to ensure that the lowest possible risk to people and the environment is obtained. This is the philosophy behind integrated pest management (IPM). When a pesticide is needed, it should be applied only when it can be guaranteed to work. This requires knowledge of the biology of the pest, the environment, and the impact of different control techniques.
Eradication
Eradication strategies are often used to eliminate diseases that threaten human health. These can be viruses, bacterial pathogens, plant fungus, rodents, or invertebrates like mites, spiders, and insects. Disease eradication requires strong control efforts at the local, national, and international level. These controls include public education, quarantine, zoning, sanitation, and inspection of imports and exports. Eradication programs are usually costly and difficult to implement. They may also require certification by independent, respected entities that the disease is no longer present in a particular region.
Chemical methods of pest control include spraying the target area with a lethal substance that either kills or repels the target organism. This is one of the most extreme methods of pest control and is generally reserved for situations that cannot be controlled with other methods. These methods can cause damage to the environment, if they are misused or mishandled. They can lead to the death of beneficial insects, contamination of water supplies and crops, the creation of resistant populations, groundwater pollution, and damage to adjacent plants and wildlife.
Another way to get rid of pests is to use biological agents, such as parasitoids and predators that attack or feed on pests. These agents are nonlethal and do not contaminate the surrounding environment. They are effective in reducing pest numbers and can be used along with other methods of control.
The best approach to pest control depends on the situation and a number of environmental, economic, and cultural factors. A pest control program should be based on a careful assessment of the risks and benefits of controlling a specific species. It should consider the impact on ecosystems and economies, the availability of alternative sources of food, and the social and cultural acceptance of a certain method of control.
While many people can manage minor pest problems themselves, such as the odd ant’s nest in the garden or a few flies in the house in summer, professional pest control services are often needed in commercial premises. These can be provided by the local council or one of the 878 pest controllers registered in the UK.
Natural Forces
In nature, pest populations are usually limited in size by predators, parasites, disease organisms, competitors and other natural enemies. These natural controls can be augmented to improve the efficiency of pest control without pesticides. This is called biological control.
Insects are susceptible to infections by bacteria, fungi and protozoans that reduce the rate of feeding, slow or prevent reproduction and may even kill them. In addition, many insects are affected by pheromones and juvenile hormones that influence their development into adults. Natural barriers, such as mountains or large bodies of water, restrict the movement of some pest species. A lack of food and shelter also affects the success of some pest species.
Changing landscape features, such as altering the slope of a field, can help direct the flow of water and thereby reduce the number of pests. Removing or limiting the use of plant debris and other material that provide overwintering or over-landing sites can also reduce pest problems. Changing irrigation practices to avoid over or under-watering plants can limit the spread of root diseases, which in turn reduces pest damage.
Biological controls include introducing natural enemies of the pest, such as predators, parasitoids and pathogens. These natural enemies can be of the same species as the pest, or they can be different. Known as classical biological control, this approach involves finding, testing, quarantining and rearing suitable natural enemies for release in the cropping area, with attention to proper timing in enemy and pest life cycles.
Modern biological control relies on a wide range of research and information about the biology of a pest and its natural enemies. The resulting biological control methods are generally less labor intensive than traditional chemical approaches and can result in a lower incidence of recurrence after the introduction of an introduced or invasive pest.
In general, it is best to aim for prevention and suppression of pests, while causing as little harm to non-target species as possible. A pest that causes very little damage should be allowed to continue its existence, but if it is a serious nuisance, eradication should be the goal.