Pest Control Woodland Hills CA is any method used to prevent or eliminate pests that cause harm. Preventive measures include removing food and water sources that attract pests and reducing the clutter around homes that provide hiding places.
Keep food in airtight containers and clean up spills and crumbs regularly. Clutter also attracts pests, so minimize the amount of trash around the house.
Most insects are vital to natural and agricultural ecosystems as pollinators, decomposers, predators, and pest control agents. They are essential parts of food webs that support and shape the beauty, diversity, and productivity of natural and urban landscapes. But many insect populations have been influenced by human activities, including the destruction of habitats and the use of unnecessarily harsh or harmful chemicals. The widespread and continued use of chemical pesticides can contaminate the environment, affecting the health of plant and animal species and disrupting ecosystems. The burning of fossil fuels and climate change can also impact insect populations by altering temperature, rainfall and the frequency of extreme weather events.
Insects are generally small, with three body segments, six legs, a head, thorax and abdomen and two antennae. They have specialized mouthparts for feeding on different types of food and a pair of eyes. The color and structure of antennae can provide clues to the type of insect. Some, such as bees and butterflies, have long proboscises for drinking nectar or piercing the skin of plants for blood. Others chew or pierce leaves, flowers and fruit to eat. Some have sticky saliva to aid in clinging to surfaces.
Some insects are perennial pests, such as plum curculio, flea beetles and striped cucumber beetles. Their numbers fluctuate over several years in response to weather conditions, such as temperature and precipitation. Other insects are cyclical pests, such as gypsy moths and canker worms. Their population growth is suppressed by native parasites, predators and diseases, but when they enter an area without these natural controls, they grow rapidly.
Keeping a balance of plant and insect populations is the key to successful gardening and farming. Using cultural and mechanical control methods before turning to pesticides will help keep populations in check. Decide how much plant damage is acceptable and monitor regularly for pest activity. If a particular crop is threatened, use preventive insecticides only when necessary and with the least toxic options available.
The Cornell AES professional greenhouse staff has been using biocontrols – encouraging beneficial living organisms to control harmful ones – for over 20 years in some of the 146 greenhouses it manages for research and teaching at the Ithaca campus. Watch this video to learn how the greenhouse horticulture staff integrates biocontrols into its integrated pest management (IPM) strategies.
Rodents
Rodents are one of the most common pests and can cause many problems. They can contaminate food, displace crops and other valuable items in fields and in homes and businesses, damage property, and spread disease. Rodents can also gnaw on electrical wires, creating fire hazards and putting people and animals at risk for injury or illness. Rodents cause billions of dollars in crop losses each year. Some rodents are carriers of harmful diseases like hantavirus, leptospirosis and salmonella.
Rodents can be found in almost every environment around the world. They are unafraid to approach people and places in search of food and shelter. They are intelligent, resourceful and have highly developed senses of sight, smell, taste and touch.
They can chew through a variety of materials, including plastics, fabrics and paper products. Their front teeth are optimized for gnawing and can easily tear through packaging, cardboard and newspaper. They will even gnaw through concrete and metal. Their habit of foraging in dark and obscured areas can lead them to enter homes, garages, basements, attics, wall voids, crawl spaces and other structures.
Regularly inspecting and cleaning cluttered spaces inside and outside the home can help to deter rodents. This includes removing sources of water and shelter. Regularly remove piles of brush, logs, wood and other debris that rodents can use for nesting and hiding places. Keep bushes and tree limbs trimmed away from buildings. Make sure to seal cracks and holes in the foundation, walls and roof of a building.
A professional technician will help a homeowner to create a rodent control plan. This will include preventative measures such as sealing cracks, gaps and holes in the foundation, walls, and roof of a structure; installing door sweeps; caulking leaky faucets; and removing potential food and water sources. The technician will also look for signs of rats and mice, such as droppings, rub marks, urine (using a black light) and chewed surfaces.
The most important way to reduce rodent problems is by preventing them from entering the home in the first place. Ensure food is stored in sealed containers and inaccessible to rodents. Be sure to clean up spills promptly, especially in hard-to-reach places like under stoves and refrigerator doors.
Pathogens
Some pathogens (viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa) cause disease in humans or other animals by attacking specific cells or groups of cells. The severity of the symptoms that are produced reflects the virulence of the pathogen. The virulence of a virus, for example, can vary from mild to fatal.
All pathogens need a host to survive and grow. Some pathogens are obligate parasites and require one or more specialized hosts to complete their life cycles. The obligate parasites are often vertebrates, while the intermediate hosts may be insects, mollusks or arthropods. For example, the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes plague, requires the host rodents and fleas to complete its life cycle. However, Yersinia can also infect human beings directly through flea bites or spores that travel to the lungs.
Most pathogens attack their hosts by invading cells and entering them to replicate. Once inside the host cell, the pathogens can produce toxins that disrupt tissue or kill it. Some of these toxins are well-known, including the deadly tetanus, anthrax and botulinum toxin. Other pathogens produce strong immune responses that damage healthy tissue in addition to the target tissue.
The severity of the symptoms a pathogen produces is determined by its virulence and host response, as well as whether or not it is an obligate parasite with a specialized life cycle. However, the fact that many bacterial and viral diseases have no known cause indicates that their virulence is often unpredictable.
Pathogens spread from one person to another in a variety of ways. They can be spread through skin-to-skin contact during sex, inhaling droplets that contain the pathogens during coughing or sneezing, or from consuming contaminated food or water. They can also spread by contaminating a person’s hands with germs and then touching other people or objects, such as when preparing food, using the bathroom, changing a diaper or petting a dog.
Biological control uses living organisms to control pests in agriculture, forestry and in home gardens and landscapes. The techniques are complex, involving the interaction of many disciplines including soil physicists, meteorologists, computer modeling experts and analytical chemists as well as microbiologists and geneticists.
Biological Control
The third approach to pest control, biological control, uses living organisms (often called natural enemies) to suppress pest populations, making them less damaging. These organisms may be predators, parasitoids or pathogens, and can be imported, conserved, or mass-produced and released. When used correctly, biological controls can be more effective, economical and sustainable than chemical treatments.
Biological control requires a good understanding of the ecology and behavior of both the pest and the organism that suppresses it. In addition, a proper pest identification is crucial to selecting the most appropriate natural enemy species for the job. Biological control can be a slow process, since it often takes time for the natural enemy to multiply to adequate numbers to prevent pest outbreaks. For this reason, it is generally a component of an integrated pest management program (IPM) and is rarely the sole method employed for controlling a pest.
When a pest population rises above economic or aesthetic thresholds, a more rapid and drastic reduction is often necessary. In these situations, it is sometimes necessary to use a biopesticide to “knock down” the pest population and allow the biological control agents to catch up. This type of biological control is referred to as augmentation.
Different types of biological control organisms are used to control different pests. For example, the predatory mite Amblysieus swirskii feeds on thrips, whiteflies and broad mites, while the pathogenic nematode Bacillus thuringiensis releases toxins that attack caterpillars. Other microbiological biopesticides include fungi and plant extracts that can repel, exclude or cause disease in a particular weed or pest.
It is important to remember that, unlike chemicals, biological control organisms are alive and have their own needs. In order to thrive, they must be provided with suitable food and shelter. This can be done by providing plants that are useful to the organism, such as host plants for parasitoids or predators, or simply by providing a habitat that is conducive to their survival. Occasionally, the cultivation system can be modified to make it more favorable to the biological control organisms, for example by allowing the fungus or plant extract to grow on the surface of the cropping medium.