Accurate pest identification is the first step in developing an effective pest control strategy. Continuous, sporadic, and potential pests may be predictable if you know their environmental conditions of occurrence.
Pest Control Meridian protects property value by reducing damage to buildings and furnishings. It also reduces the spread of disease-causing pathogens and allergens.
In order to reduce the need for pest control services, there are many preventive measures that can be taken. These include keeping storage areas clean and reducing clutter to limit hiding places for pests. Frequently inspecting and sealing cracks and gaps can also be effective. Installing door sweeps and weather stripping are other important preventive measures. Lastly, regularly trimming bushes and removing debris from the yard can eliminate potential pathways for pests to access your home or business.
Many pests need water to survive, so eliminating accessible water sources is essential for prevention. Leaking pipes, trapped moisture, and humid environments are all common problems that can attract pests to your home or business. Regularly fixing leaks and using dehumidifiers can help to eliminate pest breeding grounds.
Pests such as rodents and cockroaches are attracted to food, so it is important to store foods in airtight containers and keep trash bins sealed when not in use. Regular cleaning and sanitizing of counters, sinks, and food storage areas can also be helpful in preventing pest infestations.
Sanitation practices can be very effective for preventing pests, particularly in commercial settings such as retail and hospitality. Good site sanitation includes sweeping and vacuuming to remove debris and ensuring garbage bins are regularly emptied and disposed of. In agriculture, proper manure management is key to preventing pest carryover from one field to the next.
Some pests are naturally regulated by natural enemies or their environment, so prevention may involve enhancing these natural forces to help regulate the population. This can be done by releasing natural enemies into an area to crowd out the pests, or it can be done by introducing natural barriers that prevent the pest from entering a site, such as physical barriers such as fences or chemical barriers such as pheromones or hormones.
Prevention of pests in museums is difficult, but it can be minimized through the use of sanitation techniques. Maintaining a dust free environment, storing artifacts in plastic boxes or metal cabinets and preventing water from getting into the building through leaky walls or air vents all contribute to lessening the risk of pest invasion.
Suppression
When pest populations reach levels where they cause unacceptable damage, suppression becomes the goal of many pest control situations. Most pest management programs are primarily a combination of prevention and suppression tactics. Pests can be controlled by natural, chemical, mechanical or cultural methods. Natural controls are environmental factors that limit the number and distribution of pests, such as topography, weather or the availability of water. Biological controls are natural enemies that injure or consume pests, such as parasitoids or predators. Chemical controls include a wide range of materials that directly impact the pests, such as fungicides, herbicides or insecticides. Mechanical and physical controls include traps, baits, diversionary structures and barriers to movement. Genetic controls use the natural or synthetic manipulation of pests by altering their genes, such as through pheromones or juvenile hormones.
In some settings, such as food establishments where health and economic damage concerns are severe, eradication is the desired objective of pest control. In open outdoor environments such as citrus groves, however, eradication is much more difficult to achieve than suppression.
Pests are organisms such as insects, arthropods, diseases, nematodes, viruses or weeds that negatively affect the growth and/or quality of crops or the environment. They can also displace desirable species, reduce soil quality and moisture, alter terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems, harm humans, wildlife or livestock or destroy buildings and structures.
Prevention is the most effective method for controlling pests. Monitoring pests for injury and damage to plants can help determine when the numbers of the pest exceed an action threshold that requires intervention. In addition, a careful analysis of the pest’s life cycle and history in the area can be helpful in developing a pest control program.
UF/IFAS Extension multi-county horticultural agents and other specialists can work with growers to assess the current level of pest infestation and develop an appropriate action plan for dealing with it. Monitoring of pest populations can be done with traps, scouting and visual inspection. A good scouting program includes a detailed survey of the crop, including trees, ground cover and surrounding vegetation. Monitoring also can involve checking for other environmental conditions that may contribute to pest problems, such as temperature and moisture.
Eradication
The goal of pest control is to reduce or eliminate infestations, which can cause damage to property or health threats. Generally, only qualified pest control technicians can perform this task. Pest control companies usually start with an initial inspection to assess the extent of a problem. This is followed by treatment inside and outside the home to create a barrier against pests. This may involve spraying, baiting, trapping or dusting.
While many people consider pests to be unsightly, they often serve important ecological functions in food chains and habitats. For example, some pests are predators that eat the eggs and larvae of others. In such cases, pest populations should be managed rather than eliminated, as this helps to ensure that the ecosystem remains healthy.
Preventive steps are the best first line of defense against pests. Regular cleaning of floors and storage areas, sealing open foods and removing garbage regularly can significantly lower the chances of pest infestations. Similarly, closing off entry points and cracks by caulking and sealing around doors and windows and keeping outdoor areas clear of bushes, woodpiles and trash cans can help keep pests at bay.
If pests do appear, IPM advocates addressing them with do-it-yourself measures before resorting to chemical controls. This is particularly true for insects and rodents that pose a threat to human health, such as the disease-carrying mice and cockroaches. Using a flyswatter and other nontoxic traps, such as jar traps and pheromone traps, can be effective at controlling them without exposing family members to toxic chemicals.
Pests that have no significant negative effect on the environment, such as silverfish and earwigs, are not considered a serious nuisance by IPM guidelines, but they can be irritating. IPM also recommends limiting use of ant and hornet sprays, which can harm beneficial insects.
Biological Control
Biological control refers to the use of natural enemies (predators, parasitoids and pathogens) to reduce pest populations. It is part of an integrated pest management system and can be used for insects, weeds or plant diseases. Natural enemy species may be present in the environment in which a pest occurs or can be introduced intentionally. The three broad categories of biological control are conservation, augmentation and importation. Conservation and augmentation are practices that can be used by any gardener or homeowner. Importation is typically restricted to scientific researchers.
In the home landscape, it is common to use predatory mites or lady beetles to control aphids and other insects. These are called natural enemies, and they are often native organisms to the region. A number of natural enemies can be purchased from gardening or insect supply stores, and they are easy to introduce into the garden.
Many of these natural enemies are specialized for feeding on one or more specific pest species. Therefore, their introduction and use should be carefully considered, since they may disrupt or displace natural enemies that occur in the region. The natural enemy species should also be tested for possible interactions with other beneficial organisms, such as crop pollinators, before they are released.
A variation on natural control is augmented natural control, where specific pest species are increased in the environment through the use of selective breeding, habitat modification or other techniques. The goal of augmented natural control is to increase the population of the natural enemy so that it suppresses a pest to below an economic threshold without affecting other organisms.
Biological control through augmentation can be used in a variety of settings, from backyard gardens and greenhouses to large commercial agricultural fields. For example, to protect sugarcane from white grubs, soil is amended with humus and grasses that attract the natural enemy nematode, which in turn attack the grub larvae.
A final approach to enhancing natural enemy populations is through mass production and periodic colonization of the natural enemy in insectaries or other facilities. This is often referred to as classical or importation biological control. These organisms are imported from their native regions and then released into the field under controlled conditions to establish a colony that will eventually provide adequate control of the pest.