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Ideally, pests should be prevented from entering a building and damaging it. Prevention involves early detection and identification of pests, along with monitoring. It also involves identifying and eliminating conditions that encourage pests. This includes cleaning practices that don’t invite pests in and structural preventive measures such as caulking gaps, installing screens for windows and doors, and filling cracks with steel wool.
In addition to contaminating food, pests can spread disease-causing organisms on surfaces and through human contact. Fleas, ticks, and rodents can carry bacteria that cause diseases such as tapeworm and Lyme disease. Viruses can also be transmitted by pests, including fruit flies, which carry and reproduce fungi that infect crops and deteriorate plant tissue.
Pest control is often a difficult and time-consuming task. However, it is essential to the health of humans, animals and plants. The main goal is to achieve long-term pest suppression by controlling their numbers and damage, avoiding the need for pesticides. A well-designed pest control program should be based on the principles of prevention, suppression and eradication. Prevention involves preventing the pests from entering the premises, while suppression reduces their population to an acceptable level and eradication destroys the pest population.
The best way to minimize the need for pesticides is to prevent the insects, rodents and weeds from becoming a problem in the first place. To do this, it is important to clean up tidbits of food in the workplace and around the house, keep garbage receptacles closed and secure, make sure all drains are working correctly, fix leaky faucets, remove wood piles from exterior walls, fit door sweeps and attach weather stripping to doors. It is also a good idea to install insect and bird repellants, but only those that are labeled for safe residential use.
Food manufacturers also need to implement a solid prevention plan in order to avoid product recalls and the loss of valuable customer business. It is also an effective way to keep in line with the fundamental mandates of FSMA and avoid a decline in a company’s brand reputation. This is why many companies contract their pest control services out to professional service providers, such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
Suppression
The goal of suppression is to reduce pest numbers below harmful levels. This can be done by using natural means or through chemical control. The use of resistant varieties, crop rotation, and the placement of vegetative buffers can help with suppression by making conditions less favorable for the development of the pest. Chemical controls such as spraying, baiting, and granules can be used to destroy or inhibit pest growth. Pesticides, however, are not always successful at controlling all types of pests. Some pests become resistant to the chemicals and can pass on the trait to their offspring.
Pest populations can also be suppressed by reducing their food supply or the availability of shelter. In addition, natural barriers to the movement of pests such as mountains and large bodies of water can restrict their ability to expand their range. Many pests will only thrive as long as their roost and food supply exists. When these supplies are exhausted, the pests will either die or become inactive.
Monitoring pests and their damage is a key aspect of prevention and suppression. This can be done through scouting and surveys to identify, record and assess the number of pests and their damage in fields and other areas. Scouting programs should include identifying and counting pests, trapping when appropriate, weather monitoring, soil testing, and insect identification. The data generated should be the basis for selecting crop rotations, economic thresholds, and suppressive actions.
Thresholds are the levels at which pest control actions should be taken, whether based on esthetic, health or economic considerations. When a pest is found, the threshold level determines what action is needed to reduce its numbers below harmful levels. For example, a zero tolerance for bacteria in operating rooms and other sterile areas of health care facilities forces the immediate use of pest controls.
Some pests are naturally controlled by predators and parasitoids. The strength of these natural enemies varies depending on landscape configuration. For instance, research has shown that trophic cascades involving birds and other insects in sun-grown Brazilian coffee fields increase with distance from forest fragments (arrows a, b, and c). However, more research is needed to understand the full range of factors that affect the effectiveness of natural enemy suppression.
Eradication
Eradication is a long-term goal of pest control that involves the reduction of a disease to zero worldwide incidence. This is achieved by eliminating all vectors and intermediate hosts, eliminating human cases, and reducing the infectiousness of the microbe. Eradication has been successful in eradicating some diseases, including smallpox and guinea worm (dracunculiasis). Eradication requires long-term monitoring and control of both vectors and human cases to ensure that infections do not occur again.
While eradication is the ultimate objective, prevention and suppression are often more practical goals in specific situations. Prevention focuses on keeping the numbers of pests low enough that they can be controlled without harming crops or posing a significant public health threat. Suppression aims to keep the populations of pests below the damage threshold by suppressing reproduction or limiting their numbers.
Biological controls are used to limit the densities of pest insects by increasing the number of predators, parasitoids, and pathogens that can naturally limit them. These natural enemies usually require time to multiply to levels sufficient to overcome the population of pests, and there is a lag between the increase in the number of natural enemies and the decrease in the numbers of pests. Therefore, even though the goal of a biological control system is to establish a stable balance between a pest’s population and the number of its enemies, the system must be managed like a conventional pesticide in order to achieve its objectives. This is done by releasing the enemy organisms in large numbers, either on a seasonal basis or inundatively, as in the case of most commercially available formulations of insect pathogens.
A critical issue for all control methods is the compatibility of those materials with the ecological integrity of agro-ecosystems. Efforts must be made to minimize the adverse effects of control measures on natural enemies, as well as reducing the need for chemical controls by combining them with cultural and physical methods of pest management. By using resistant varieties, utilizing cultural practices that reduce the density of pests, manipulating their mating or host-finding behavior, and employing physical methods to remove or degrade pest habitats, it may be possible to diminish the need for synthetic chemical controls, and ultimately to eradicate some pests entirely.
Treatment
Treatment is a reactive response to pests that are already present and typically involves baiting, trapping, or spraying of specific areas. It is often used in conjunction with prevention and eradication. It is a key component of integrated pest management (IPM).
The first step in treatment is an inspection to identify the pest and the extent of the infestation. From here a customized plan is developed to treat the problem areas. This may include both interior and exterior applications depending on the pest and the severity of the infestation.
In addition to physical damage caused by feeding and scratching, pests can carry disease-causing pathogens in their guts or on their bodies. These can be ingested by humans and pets or introduced into the environment. Several pests also contaminate foodstuffs with their droppings or secretions. Pest control is often necessary to protect consumers’ health and food quality, as well as to preserve property value.
Most pests have natural enemies such as parasites, predators, or pathogens that limit their numbers. In addition, some pests are affected by weather conditions, including temperature, humidity, and day length, which affect their activity and rate of reproduction.
Chemical pest control includes the use of pesticides to kill or repel insects or rodents. These chemicals are usually sprayed or poured on to surfaces and into cracks and crevices where pests hide. Generally, these chemicals are designed to only target the pests they are intended for and will not harm non-target organisms such as plants or animals. However, if non-target organisms are too close to the area being treated or if the pesticide is applied incorrectly, other organisms may be harmed.
For example, surface sprays may cling to hair or clothing and cause irritation to people or pets. For this reason, it is important to remove or cover personal items when a home is being sprayed. It is also important to remove food, cooking utensils, and any other items from the area being treated. It is advisable to also avoid mopping the floor for a few weeks after a treatment.
It is also important to follow all instructions and precautions provided with the chemical container and read the label to ensure the safety of children, pets, or elderly people who may be in the house. If you are unsure about how to safely apply or dispose of a product, contact your pest control service provider for guidance.
