Pests can transmit diseases to people and animals, destroy crops, and infest food supplies. Pest control is a necessary part of owning property.

A good preventive maintenance program is the best way to avoid pest problems. If a problem occurs, a professional should be called in for treatment. Contact Armis Pest Management now!

Preventive pest control includes a series of strategies to prevent infestations from happening. These strategies are based on an understanding of the pests’ life cycles, behavior, and the environmental conditions that favor their growth and development. Prevention can involve a combination of tactics, including biological control, habitat manipulation, cultural modification, and resistant varieties. Monitoring is also a key part of preventative pest control. Monitoring helps identify pest population levels and determine when to take action if the pests reach unacceptable damage or nuisance levels.

In homes and businesses, preventive pest control measures typically aim to eliminate the food, water, and shelter sources that attract pests. This can include patching holes in walls, removing debris and clutter that provides shelter and hiding spots for pests, storing foods safely and regularly disposing of trash. It can also include sanitizing work areas, ensuring that shipments of food or other products are checked for pests before arriving at their destination and keeping doors shut as much as possible in commercial settings.

Natural methods of pest control are often effective, particularly for sporadic or localized pest problems. These can include biological control, which involves the introduction of organisms that suppress or kill pests, such as predatory insects, parasitic plants and pathogens. Biological control methods are generally non-toxic to humans and other organisms and are a good choice for environmentally sensitive areas or when chemical controls may not be suitable.

When chemical pesticides are necessary, they should be used judiciously and with care to minimize the risk of resistance and adverse health effects. This requires understanding the pests, their life cycle and environment, identifying the correct pesticide to use, and applying it correctly to avoid environmental contamination.

Integrated pest management (IPM) is an ecosystem-based strategy that uses the principles of prevention, monitoring, suppression and treatment to reduce or eliminate pests in agriculture and urban landscapes. It includes all the elements of preventative pest control, but goes further by utilizing a variety of techniques to reduce or eliminate the need for chemical controls, such as biological, physical and managerial approaches.

Suppression

Pest control strategies aim to prevent pest populations from rising above certain levels, called action thresholds. Thresholds are based on esthetic, health or economic considerations and may be set for insects, weeds or vertebrates. In outdoor settings, eradication is a rare goal; usually, it’s suppression that is desired. However, in enclosed environments such as homes and commercial buildings, eradication is a common goal.

Biological control uses living organisms to suppress or make less damaging pests, typically by attacking the pest directly. The organisms are natural enemies of the pest, such as predators, parasitoids or pathogens. To use a biological control agent, it must be obtained or made and then introduced into an environment where the pest is abundant, usually with careful attention to the timing of enemy and pest life cycles and to how the enemy will interact with other organisms in the new setting. Most biological control agents are not aimed at achieving a permanent population of natural enemies; instead, they are released in large numbers to quickly drop the pest population below the action threshold.

Pathogens, for example, can reduce pests by slowing or stopping their growth and reproduction. Insect pests often carry bacteria, fungi or protozoans that can reduce their rate of feeding, impair their movement and cause disease, sometimes even death. Disease-causing agents can also be injected into a pest to kill it or to force the insect to release eggs or sperm, resulting in sterile offspring that cannot reproduce.

Other biological controls are the result of genetic modification, as in gene drives that spread changes through a target insect population. The concept is that by knocking out genes that regulate spermatogenesis or other reproductive processes, the population will be forced to decline to lower equilibrium levels. For example, a gene drive could be used against the alfalfa weevil that has become a major pest in many areas of the US. The gene drive would change the gene that makes the wasp mate with any fertilized egg, producing only males in future generations (Dearden et al., 2017).

Detection

Pest detection is the first step in an effective pest control program. It involves identifying the presence of pests and often includes basic information such as the type, life cycle stage, physical characteristics and behavior patterns. Correct identification is critical because pesticides are more effective when they target specific pests. Also, a pesticide that is applied at the wrong time may not kill the pests or could cause damage to other organisms.

Detection of insect, insect-like, mollusk, vertebrate and some weed pests is normally done by trapping or visual inspection. In some cases, the environmental conditions such as temperature and moisture levels provide clues to when pest numbers will increase and reach action levels.

Many invasive pests, especially those that damage crops, are able to reproduce quickly in outdoor environments and must be controlled before they can spread. To prevent these pests from spreading, they must be detected and eradicated before they reach a threshold population level at which they will become economically or technically impractical to control. Early detection of exotic pests is crucial for the success of eradication programs and for suppressing established pest populations through biological, chemical or other integrated pest management techniques.

Sensor technology is available to monitor crop health and pest activity. These sensors can be used to capture and analyse a variety of data including electrical, chemical, electrochemical, optical, magnetic or vibrational signals. Sensors can be incorporated into farming equipment, such as tractors, or they can be deployed in field areas. They can be used to monitor the presence of pests in soil or in the air, and they can be used to identify and track crop diseases.

Image-based pest monitoring systems allow farmers to monitor the presence of a wide range of insects, plant diseases and other threats with high accuracy. Using advanced image processing, these systems can analyse and identify the presence of pests within a field with unprecedented speed and reliability. A recent experiment involved collecting images of six diverse pests (tobacco whiteflies, leaf miners, aphids, fruit flies, thrips and houseflies) in two greenhouses to develop an improved deep learning model for automatic pest detection. The model was then tested in the field and demonstrated high recognition accuracies.

Treatment

Once a pest has been identified and its presence determined, treatment is the act of eliminating it or reducing its numbers to an acceptable level. Treatment is a common goal of many pest control strategies and can include sanitation, exclusion, biological controls, and/or chemical applications.

Some pest problems can be eliminated by simply removing or closing off their entry points (exclusion). Infestations of weeds, some plant diseases, and wood-destroying insects can often be controlled by mowing or spraying them when they are small and before they have the opportunity to develop into major infestations (suppression).

Clutter in a dwelling or workplace provides breeding sites and hiding places for insects and also gives them a source of food. Eliminate stacks of newspapers, magazines, and cardboard, wipe down counters, and remove trash promptly. Caulking cracks and crevices and filling holes can help keep out pests, as well. Some plant-eating pests can be controlled with the introduction of beneficial insects, pathogens, or nematodes, which can kill or reduce their populations.

Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, is an ecosystem-based approach to controlling pests and their damage that emphasizes prevention through regular monitoring, manipulation of habitat, and modification of cultural practices. In IPM, pesticides are used only after monitoring indicates they are needed according to established guidelines and in a manner that minimizes risks to people, beneficial organisms, and the environment.

The goal of eradication is seldom sought in outdoor pest situations, but it may be possible in some cases with carefully designed programs. Some examples include eradication of Mediterranean fruit flies, gypsy moths, and fire ants.

Many pesticides work slowly, so they must be applied at just the right time in order to be effective. This is why it is important to know what kind of pest problem you have before you get a service call and why a service technician should always provide a written estimate and warranty before performing any treatments, especially preventative ones. It is also a good idea to have any pest control treatments performed by licensed professionals who are willing and able to provide you with documentation of their licenses and insurance.