Home » Uncategorized » The Basics of Pest Control

The Basics of Pest Control

Louisville Pest Control aims to keep pest populations below damaging levels through suppression and prevention. Continuous pests, such as ants, roaches, fleas, ticks, and worms, are usually predictable and require regular treatment.

Biological pest control uses nature’s help, releasing beneficial insects like ladybugs or parasitic nematodes to eat unwanted pests. This method also becomes more sophisticated with microbe-based solutions engineered from bacteria.

Accurate pest identification is the first step in determining the need for pest control. Proper identification allows you to determine the specific type of pest, its life cycle, and habits. It also allows you to make a better-informed decision about what cultural practices, tools, or pesticides are needed for eradication.

Incorrect identification can be costly, even disastrous. It can result in the use of improper or ineffective control tactics that damage healthy plants, cause unnecessary risk to human health and the environment or result in a loss of valuable production. It can also lead to the waste of time, labor, and money on products that were not needed or that did not provide the expected results.

Pests often change in appearance during different stages of their life cycle or as they mature from juvenile to adult forms. These windows of opportunity, when the pest is at its most vulnerable, are typically when management tactics can be the most effective.

To correctly identify a pest, observe it closely and carefully to notice its size, shape and color. Then, visit the pest identification guide for that species to learn more about its characteristics, habitat, feeding preferences, threats, signs of an infestation and prevention and control measures.

Most of the guides include photos that can help you compare the pest to a similar one, making it easier to pinpoint the correct identification. In some cases, it may be necessary to consult additional online or offline resources for final confirmation.

If you are not sure what type of pest you have, consider contacting your local farm or business advisor, commodity or industry organization, Cooperative Extension agent, State land grant university, or a pest identification service such as NIS. These services can provide expert pest identification through morphological characteristics or by using an identifier key that presents a series of choices to arrive at the correct identification.

If a pest is found indoors, try to locate and eliminate the breeding site. Typical breeding sites for indoor pests include dead animals in attics and chimneys, pet feces, dirty garbage cans, and rotting organic matter of plant or animal origin.

Pest Prevention

Pest prevention uses a variety of strategies to keep unwanted organisms from gaining entry into buildings, structures or yards. Its goal is to reduce the need for pest control by modifying habitats, soils and cultural practices rather than using chemicals. When pesticides are used, they are used as a last resort and only when monitoring indicates it is necessary according to established guidelines. Pest prevention is a key component of the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to pest control.

Identifying pests and their damage is the first step in the prevention process. Then, scouting and monitoring are performed regularly to determine the need for control. Often, scouting is done by walking a route and looking for signs of pests. Depending on the pest, these signs could include droppings, egg masses, tunneling, molting or damage.

Some pests, such as insect-like flies and mosquitoes, are best controlled by eliminating their hiding places – for example, patching holes in walls, keeping garbage receptacles in secure areas and using screens on windows. Other pests, such as carpenter ants and termites, are best prevented by modifying the structure to make it more resistant. This may involve sealing joints, adding caulking, and repairing leaks.

Preventive measures also can be taken at the design phase of a building or landscape. These techniques can lower long-term pest control costs and minimize the use of chemicals.

A preventive strategy defines what the client and pest management professional are each responsible for and ensures both parties fulfill their responsibilities. It includes things like establishing who is on staff to inspect food shipments for pests, ensuring that uniform cleaning protocols are followed and that dumpsters are located away from buildings and cleaned regularly, and determining which parts of a facility should be wet washed rather than dry washed to reduce moisture attracting pests. Once an established preventive program is in place, it becomes second nature and lessens a company’s pest exposure. It requires vigilance and constant monitoring, but once in place, it allows for more time to focus on other priorities. It is much more cost effective to prevent pests from entering a facility than trying to eradicate them once they are there.

Pest Control Methods

Whether pests are insects, rodents or something else, a good preventive maintenance program will help keep them at bay. A routine inspection schedule for buildings, grounds, and surrounding areas will spot problems before they become major infestations that require more aggressive actions. Investing in the right tools will make this work easier. For example, a telescoping mirror makes it easy to check behind and underneath equipment or furniture for signs of pests. A flashlight is also indispensable for spotting pests in dark, secluded harborage areas. It’s also helpful to know the pests’ behavior and movement patterns, which will help you determine what type of barrier or trap to use. For example, if you discover that a roach population is moving along a specific route, you can block off entry points with a screen or caulk. Positioning bait stations at the ends of this route will catch the pests as they are exiting the area.

Biological methods of control use natural predators and parasites to reduce pest populations without the use of chemicals. This may include introducing helpful organisms, such as the nematode genus Steinernema carpocapsa, which feeds on roaches, grubs and fleas, or planting crops that attract beneficial insects such as bumblebees and monarch butterflies.

Physical management controls include barriers that exclude pests from a property, such as screens, fences, nets and tarps. It also includes sanitation techniques that prevent food, water and shelter from attracting pests. These include regular garbage removal, keeping stored products out of the open, storing items in containers that discourage pests and maintaining clean equipment.

Pesticides are used only after monitoring identifies a problem and careful consideration of the risks to human health, beneficial insects and the environment. NMSU’s Pesticide Education Series explains how to select the most effective pesticides, apply them according to established guidelines, and follow proper application procedures to minimize environmental contamination.

The goal of pest control is to bring pest numbers to a level that causes unacceptable harm and then prevent them from returning to that threshold. To do this, you need to evaluate the situation and conditions that led to the pest infestation and identify underlying causes of the problem.

Pesticides

Pesticides are chemical agents that destroy or inhibit the growth of unwanted organisms, such as insects, weeds and plant diseases. They are generally applied to plants through sprays, drenches, powders or fumigants. The most common pesticides are fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. They are most often used in combination with other methods of control to form an integrated pest management (IPM) plan. When deciding to use a pesticide, always carefully read the label. It should contain a list of both the active ingredients and other substances that are not responsible for the pesticide’s action. The latter are called inert ingredients. Never exceed the recommended application rate; doing so wastes the pesticide, pollutes the environment and may result in injury to your plants.

Most pesticides are highly toxic to a wide range of species. They can kill the intended target organisms or contaminate the environment, depriving other species of essential nutrients and disrupting ecosystems. They can be released into air, water or sediments, or be ingested by birds and other animals that feed on contaminated crops. Some are also carcinogenic to humans.

The human health hazards of most pesticides range from short-term impacts such as headache and nausea to long-term, chronic effects like cancer and reproductive harm. Some rely on neurotoxic chemicals to function, such as the organophosphate family of pesticides (such as pyrethrins and methyl bromide), which interfere with nerve-impulse transmission by blocking ions in axons or synapses. Others, such as the older and more widely used dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and lindane, persist in soil or water for long periods of time and build up in fatty tissues, making them toxic to humans and other living organisms.

Many of the most common pesticides, including herbicides and fungicides, are also neurotoxic to wildlife, as are many rodenticides, which affect not only rats and mice but squirrels, chipmunks and other mammals that can feed on commercial and residential crops. In addition, pesticides often kill or depress natural enemies that control or otherwise benefit crop plants, such as birds, bees and butterflies, and can have other unintended ecological consequences.