Pests are unwanted organisms that damage plants, crops or structures. They may also cause health problems like Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, leptospirosis, and plague.
Some natural forces affect pest populations and help determine when control is needed. Continuous and sporadic pests can be predicted. Contact Pest Control Vancouver, BC, now!
Some cultural practices reduce the number of pests attacking cultivated plants. These techniques include crop rotation, soil cultivation, varying planting and harvest times, and using trap crops.
Pest Identification
The first step in any pest control program is to accurately identify the pest. Whether it’s an insect, weed, plant disease, or vertebrate animal, knowing exactly what you are dealing with makes determining appropriate control tactics easier and more effective. Incorrect pest identification can lead to improper or harmful controls that cost time and money, as well as expose staff members and the public to unnecessary risks.
Accurately identifying pests requires knowledge of the pest biology and life cycle, and consideration of the environment in which it is living. This is important because different pests behave and live differently, requiring different management strategies. Also, certain pests have specific behaviors or characteristics that make them vulnerable to treatment methods that may not be effective on other species of the same pest.
Proper pest identification can help prevent the overuse of chemicals in collections, especially when it comes to invasive and potentially toxic insects. Pest identification also allows professionals to use more targeted approaches, which can be safer for collections and the environment.
Using an integrated pest management (IPM) approach to collection care, including monitoring and identification, is the best way to minimize the risk of damage or loss to materials in collections. IPM reduces the need for chemical pesticides and focuses on prevention rather than remediation. The safest method of controlling pests in collections is to correctly identify the pests and use proper housekeeping and collection storage practices to prevent them from gaining access to collections.
While there are many online resources that can be used to aid in pest identification, it is important to check several sources to confirm the information. Also, a local university or Cooperative Extension office may be able to provide printed guides for identification and/or assist with identifying pests in your area.
Often, pests are most easily identified by their frass (excrement), parts of their body, or other behavioral traits such as their preferred food source or breeding habitat. A good magnifying tool is helpful in spotting these indicators, and a flashlight can be used to illuminate secluded areas of the collection where pests hide or seek shelter.
Prevention
Pest control is a proactive response to deter pests before they become established. It includes preventive tactics such as reducing the presence of food, water and shelter sources that attract pests. It also includes eliminating the pests’ ability to reproduce. These steps help to lower pest populations so that they do not reach unacceptable levels of damage.
Prevention is a broad term and covers many actions that can be taken to prevent pests from entering commercial properties. Examples include removing food source sources such as garbage and compost, keeping doors closed, sealing cracks and crevices, and limiting the presence of moisture which can attract certain pests. It also includes establishing cleaning and sanitation practices that don’t invite pests to enter, and ensuring that maintenance tasks are completed. It also includes determining who on staff is responsible for inspecting incoming food shipments, and instituting uniform cleaning protocol to reduce the likelihood of employees accidentally carrying pests into facilities on their clothing or equipment.
Agricultural pests are organisms that cause stress or direct physical/biological damage to crops. This can be from competition for resources (e.g. weeds) to diseases caused by insects that infect or destroy crops. Pests can also be vertebrates such as rats and mice or birds that may carry pathogens to plants or surfaces they come into contact with, or even contaminate foods. Pests can also be microscopic such as bacteria, fungi or viruses that infect or kill crops.
A pest prevention program is the best way to protect a facility and its personnel from costly pest invasions. While a pest prevention program takes more time and effort than a treatment, the investment pays off in lower pest control costs. The program should be a collaboration between the pest management professional and the client, as it requires both parties to work together to identify and eliminate the conditions that support pests. For example, identifying which areas of the facility are most likely to harbor pests can help to ensure that pest repellant is focused where it will be most effective. In addition, understanding pests’ life cycles, such as their reproductive stages, can help to predict when to target them with insecticide or other controls.
Suppression
Pests can cause a variety of problems in food processing environments. These include physical contamination (e.g. rodent droppings, insect parts and foreign bodies) and microbial pathogens carried in the guts of insects or on their external surfaces, and damage to machinery or materials. They can also affect the quality of the final product and, in extreme cases, lead to a shutdown of production. Food manufacturers often contract the services of a specialist pest control company to carry out this work. Services may include monitoring of food processing environments; trapping and/or baiting for rodents, flying insects and birds; fumigation or heat treatments of stored products; reporting structures; reviews and trend analysis.
Once pest populations are identified and a decision has been made to take action, control tactics can be used to reduce them to unacceptable levels. This may involve the use of chemicals, biological controls or other means. Integrated pest management is the common name for this approach to controlling pests. It aims to achieve a balance between the needs of pests and humans by using several different methods of control in combination.
Chemical pesticides are often applied to provide a rapid knockdown effect when a pest population has risen above an acceptable level. In some instances, they can also be used to prevent a problem from occurring in the first place by preemptively treating areas that are likely to become pests.
Biological controls are organisms that can be used to manage pest populations without the need for synthetic or chemical interventions. These are usually referred to as natural enemies and can be predators, parasites or pathogens. They can be supplemented through the introduction of new natural enemies into an area or by enhancing the activities of existing ones.
Homeowners can practise conservation biological control by encouraging natural enemies in the garden through changes to landscape management and limiting pesticide use. This is generally a more sustainable method of pest control than simply trying to eradicate all pests. A more comprehensive form of biological control, known as augmentation, is restricted to scientific practitioners and involves the release of large numbers of sterile males or the use of pheromones or juvenile hormones to inhibit a pest’s development.
Eradication
Eradication involves the destruction of pests to eliminate the threat they pose. This can be done using chemical, biological or mechanical means. Chemical pesticides are a common method used to control pests because they are effective, relatively quick, and inexpensive. However, they also have significant negative environmental and human health impacts, including injuring people and animals and contaminating soil, water, food, buildings and clothing. They also disrupt natural habitats and cause serious economic losses, particularly for agricultural exports.
Biological methods are typically more expensive than chemical methods, but can be effective and sustainable if they are used correctly. They can be used to prevent or eradicate invasive plants, insects, mites, nematodes and fungi that damage crops, displace native species, negatively affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems or pose a health risk to humans. These methods can be used on small scales, in specific locations or across large areas. They can include the use of predators, parasites and pathogens to control the pest population, biological management and eradication efforts to modify the environment in which the organism thrives, and biological control, in which the organism is deliberately introduced to limit its growth or spread.
The effectiveness of eradication campaigns depends on several factors, such as the taxonomic kingdom (Animalia, Bacteria, Fungi or Plantae) and biogeographic region. Other important predictors of eradication success include the reaction time between the arrival/detection of an invading organism and the start of a campaign, the degree to which sanitary measures are applied, and the spatial extent of the infestation. The probability of eradication also increases with the length of residence of the organism in the infested habitat, but this effect diminishes with the size of the infested area.
The word eradicate comes from the Latin verb eradicare, meaning “to pull up by the roots.” This makes sense for a method of pest control that involves literally yanking unwanted invaders out of the ground. It is also the root of other English words, such as radical and radish. The English word pest began life as a literal meaning of removing something, but by the 16th century had developed a metaphorical application in reference to undesirable weeds.