To solve pest problems safely and effectively, you need to identify them. Pest identification helps you determine suitable options, such as physical or biological control methods.
Having the right equipment is essential to your pest control business. You also need insurance coverage, including general liability and workers’ compensation. Contact Pest Control Springfield MO now!
Ideally, pest problems should be prevented before they occur. This is the goal of pest control programs. Preventing pests is easier and less costly than dealing with infestations already taken hold. Prevention begins with inspecting a property for signs of pests, such as soiled carpets, worn linen, and gnawed wood. A regular cleaning schedule should also be part of the preventive program. This includes removing crumbs and other debris from counters, floors, and other surfaces that can attract pests. It is important to dispose of garbage regularly and to be sure to mark trash and recycling collection days on the calendar.
Another preventive measure is to close off places where pests may enter and hide, such as rips in screens, cracks in walls, and loose floorboards. Caulking and other sealants can be effective in preventing entry by some pests. Keeping yards and gardens free of brush, weeds, and other materials where pests can hide is also a good idea. Eliminating moisture by squeezing out excess water and drying areas where condensation forms can also be helpful in reducing pest activity.
The next step in preventive pest control is to understand the nature of a particular pest problem. Knowledge about pest behavior, life cycles, and needs is essential in selecting the most appropriate control measures. For example, a sticky trap is an effective way to collect and identify insects. A rat-proof rodent guard or a well-placed mouse trap can reduce the numbers of mice that might damage stored food.
A scouting program is also an important preventive tool. In this program, staff or volunteers look for and identify pests and the damage they cause. The pests that are spotted can then be targeted with more specific control measures.
Eradication is rarely the goal of outdoor pest control, but it sometimes is successful in enclosed environments such as homes and buildings; health care, office, and school facilities; and food processing and preparation sites. Eradication programs often target specific pests, such as Mediterranean fruit flies or gypsy moths, that are not native to an area and therefore need to be controlled.
Suppression
The goal of suppression is to limit the growth of a pest population. This can be accomplished through direct application of pesticides or through other means such as changing weather conditions, crop rotation or habitat manipulation.
Physical methods for pest control include traps, barriers, screens, fences and sanitation practices. These are often more practical and less harmful to the environment than chemical approaches. Physical controls deny pests food, water or shelter. For example, ants are attracted to sugary foods and drinks left out on countertops; you can deter them by storing all food in airtight containers. In a similar vein, rodent droppings can spread diseases such as salmonellosis; reducing rodent populations reduces disease problems. Cleaning up debris, like piles of leaves and hay, and securing compost bins helps prevent rodents from nesting in them.
Weather and climate change can also affect pests. Rain, freezing temperatures, alternating periods of drought and sunlight all influence insect behavior and damage plants. In some cases, a specific pest may be pushed out of an area by its natural enemies or by competition from other species.
Many plant-eating pests have natural enemies that control their numbers and damage. Birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish prey on some pests, while other predatory insects or insect-like organisms parasitize or feed on pests. Some fungi, viruses and bacteria also suppress pests.
Changing the environment to interfere with pests’ life cycles and survival is sometimes called cultural control. This is often a more environmentally sound approach than spraying pesticides, as it can be used in areas that are sensitive to the presence of chemicals. For example, changing irrigation practices can help prevent excessive watering that causes root rot or increases the occurrence of weeds.
The simplest way to prevent pests from entering your home or business is to remove their entry points. Inspect your property regularly for cracks, crevices and holes that pests could use. You can seal small openings with duct tape, but plaster and caulking are better long-term solutions. Regularly check windows and doors, and replace any damaged siding. Put up weather strip around outside doors, and replace old, torn window screens. Keep trash cans tightly sealed, and place a cover over outdoor garbage bins.
Eradication
Infestations that go unchecked can lead to the deterioration of buildings, crops and soil. Pest control strategies focus on eliminating these organisms before they can cause significant damage or pose a threat to human health and safety.
Pests can be any organism (insects, weeds, fungi, viruses or vertebrate animals) that is unwanted in agricultural, urban or wildland areas. They can also interfere with natural ecological processes and displace native plant species and wildlife.
Those organisms that are considered pests typically possess one or more undesirable characteristics: they can damage, devalue or destroy property, crops, gardens and forests; harm or threaten human life or health, such as rodents, fleas and ticks; or have an annoying or unsightly appearance, like cockroaches, earwigs and silverfish. Some pests carry and spread disease, such as ticks, fleas, roaches, cluster flies and mud dauber wasps. Others contaminate food or water, such as ants, bees and wasps, mosquitoes, house centipedes and spiders. Many pests have a frightening or grotesque appearance and may bite or sting, such as bed bugs, earwigs, silverfish and house centipedes. Others stain or discolour furnishings, such as moths, clothes moths and pine seed bugs.
When an infestation occurs, physical and chemical pest control methods are used to eliminate them. Physical methods include trapping and exclusion, which involves sealing cracks and gaps to prevent pest entry into buildings or yards. Traps can be baited or triggered by pheromones, while exclusion techniques are designed to block pest access to food, water and shelter. Chemical pest control includes ultra-low volume fogging, which distributes tiny doses of insecticide throughout a building to kill insects in their nests, as well as fumigation, which involves sealing a building and filling it with pesticide to annihilate all pests within it.
Biological pest control uses the organisms that naturally control or destroy pests, such as parasitoids and predators. These organisms can be introduced into an area to supplement or replace existing natural controls, although there may be a time lag between a pest population increase and the corresponding increase in its natural enemies.
IPM
Integrated Pest Management is an ecologically-based, long-term crop protection strategy that uses monitoring, identification, and a combination of physical, cultural, biological and chemical controls to keep pests below damaging levels. Pests include insects, fungi, rodents, nematodes, birds, and diseases, as well as weeds, viruses, and bacteriophages. IPM includes preventative measures such as growing crops that can withstand damage, using disease-resistant plants, and avoiding contamination of food by chemicals or other contaminants. It also includes the use of predators, parasitoids and other natural enemies, and making changes in the environment that make it unfavorable to the pests (e.g., altering irrigation practices to reduce water and fertilizer runoff, caulking cracks to keep out pests, or planting weeds that provide valuable cover).
Pesticides are used only when necessary to control the most damaging pests at the time they can be effectively controlled. This is done by establishing action thresholds, which are based on the presence of the pests, their numbers, and environmental factors such as weather. IPM programs monitor and scout to determine pest types and levels, and identify them accurately. This enables the establishment of action thresholds and limits the use of pesticides to those times when they are needed. It also eliminates the possibility that pesticides will be applied when they are not needed or if the wrong type of pesticide is used.
IPM emphasizes non-chemical methods of controlling pests, and these should be employed to the maximum extent possible before resorting to any pesticide. However, it does recognize that in some cases pesticides are the most effective and least hazardous control method available, and should be employed as a last resort or when other control methods have failed. IPM plans are constantly being monitored and refined to improve their effectiveness and are intended to achieve both economic and environmental goals.
Schools and day care centers that follow an IPM approach work with school staff, commercial pest management professionals or in-house personnel to develop and implement a pest control plan that minimizes children’s exposure to pesticides, while protecting the health of the students and ensuring that foods served in schools are safe. An IPM program should include an on-site record of pest populations and treatments so that decisions can be based on current data.