Pests are organisms that damage or spoil crops, food stores, lawns, gardens and human homes. They can also displace native species and alter environmental factors.

Preventing pests starts with cleaning up and storing foods properly. Clutter provides places for pests to hide and breed. Garbage and compost should be kept away from the house, and wood piles should not be next to the house. Contact Pest Control Columbia MO now!

Pest control is a combination of preventive actions and reactive treatments to keep pests away from people, homes and businesses. Preventive measures include practices such as keeping living and storage areas clean and dry, and sealing entry points. These steps, along with proper sanitation, can help to reduce the numbers of pests.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an ecosystem-based approach to pest management that emphasizes prevention and minimizing the use of harmful chemicals. This approach to pest management uses a range of techniques such as crop rotation, soil amendments, mechanical controls, physical barriers, cultural practices, and planting of resistant varieties. In addition, IPM includes careful monitoring of pest populations and the use of targeted chemical applications when and where they are needed according to established guidelines.

In outdoor settings, preventive pest control begins with the recognition that not all pests need to be controlled. A pest that is causing unacceptable harm should be eradicated, but this is usually more difficult than controlling them at lower levels of population. Threshold-based decision-making combines the principles of scouting and monitoring with a knowledge of the life cycle of a particular pest. For example, noticing one or two wasps flying around at night may not require action, but seeing them every day and in increasing numbers indicates that a nest has probably been found.

A variety of physical and mechanical control methods are available for most pests. These can kill the pest, block them out or make their environment unsuitable for them. Some examples of physical controls include traps for rodents, weed barriers, steam sterilization of soil, and screens for birds and insects.

There are also a number of natural forces that affect all organisms, including pests. Climate, natural enemies, availability of food and water, and natural barriers can all influence the size of a pest population. It is important to be aware of these factors and to take advantage of them when possible.

Classical biological control involves the introduction of natural enemies into the environment to disrupt or eliminate a targeted pest species. These natural organisms are often bred in the laboratory, then released into an area in small, repeated batches or in a single large release. This method can be effective against some pests, but should always be used in conjunction with other methods.

Suppression

Pest control is the effort to reduce a pest population to an acceptable level. It may be accomplished by preventing the pest from escaping into other areas, reducing its ability to cause damage or simply killing it. Sanitation practices, biological control, cultural control, mechanical control and chemical (pesticide) control are all possible pest control tactics. The most effective way to prevent or suppress pests is through accurate identification of the organism and knowledge of its biology and life cycle.

Physical barriers, such as fences, screens and traps, can prevent pests from entering or leaving an area. Cultural controls, such as crop rotation, proper seed selection and planting methods can reduce the number of pests and their offspring. Sanitation measures, such as trash removal and the use of clean equipment and facilities can reduce the spread of some pests.

Chemical controls, including the use of pesticides, are often necessary to eliminate or prevent certain diseases and other damaging insects. Proper application of pesticides is important, and care should be taken not to damage other plants or animals. Often, however, a pesticide will fail to kill the target pest or will affect other organisms in harmful ways. Pests also develop resistance to pesticides, and resistant populations can quickly become a serious problem.

Biological controls include the release of natural enemies to control pests, such as parasitoids and predators. These are often difficult to establish, because the enemy must be introduced at just the right time in the pest’s life cycle, and in a suitable habitat. They may be supplemented by the use of sterile insect technique, in which large numbers of sterile predators or parasitoids are produced and released to control a specific pest.

Many of the same forces that influence pest populations in agricultural crops influence natural and wild populations of insects. Invasive species can crowd out native species, and climate changes can dramatically alter the distribution of plant and animal species. Other factors that affect pest populations include disease, weather conditions and availability of food and water. Insects, like other organisms, are infected by bacteria, fungi and protozoans that reduce their feeding activity or even kill them. Insect pathogens can also be used as biological control agents to suppress unwanted pest populations.

Host Resistance

Host resistance is one of the most effective tactics for pest control. As the name implies, this strategy involves growing crop varieties that are resistant to the damage of specific herbivores, or pest insects. It is an integral part of integrated pest management (IPM) strategies. Host-plant resistance has a number of benefits over other controls, including reduced costs and environmental concerns. It can also help to slow the development of resistance in insect pests to certain pesticides, and may be used in conjunction with other control methods.

Plants that express host resistance are able to deter the activity of herbivores through physical characteristics or chemical properties. These traits can cause the pests to avoid or die, reduce the amount of damage they do, or change how the plants are able to reproduce. There are three types of host plant resistance: non-preference, antibiosis, and tolerance.

Non-preference resistance is a plant trait that causes the pest to see the crop as unattractive by blocking stimuli, such as color or odor, that would normally attract the pest. Antibiosis resistance occurs when a plant’s chemicals deter or kill the pest or interfere with its ability to reproduce, thus reducing its population. Tolerance resistance enables the crop to endure and even grow in spite of pest injury, such as by producing chemicals that counteract a pathogen’s damaging effects or by healing wounds.

As research into the mechanisms of resistance increases, it becomes easier to develop and utilize resistant cultivars. Screening for resistance in a variety of crop germplasm is becoming more efficient, and the ability to transfer genes responsible for resistance through biotechnology has opened up new avenues for developing host resistance.

Using resistant crop varieties is a relatively inexpensive option for controlling pests, and it can be combined with other controls to maximize efficiency. It can also help to decrease the reliance on pesticides, which can reduce environmental and health worries, and it can help slow the development of resistance in insects to certain pesticides. It is important to rotate pesticide classes or modes of action, and not mix pesticides with the same mode of action, as this can increase resistance development.

Natural Forces

There are a wide range of natural forces that influence pest populations and the degree to which they cause damage. These factors include the weather, the quality and quantity of food, competition for territory or mates, disease organisms, predators and parasites, and the physical environment such as roosting sites, water and shelter. Some of these forces are outside a person’s control and may affect many people in a community, such as cold winters, but others are within a person’s control, such as sealing cracks and holes around the house or placing rat-resistant materials in crawl spaces.

Using these forces to help reduce pests is the goal of prevention. This is most often accomplished by changing the environment in which the pest lives. Physical barriers can be constructed, pheromones can be used to disrupt mating and breeding, or trapping and other methods can be employed. Altering the availability of food, water or roosting sites can also be helpful. Occasionally, eradication is attempted by using biological controls, such as releasing predators, parasitoids or pathogens.

Insects and other pests live in a complex ecosystem with their host plants or animals, other insects, bacteria, viruses, fungi and nematodes. The PCO must look at all of these elements when designing control and management strategies.

While preventive measures can be effective, some pests are sporadic and require a higher level of control, or eradication, to reduce the risk of disease or economic damage. This is why pest control professionals are always striving to be proactive and not reactive.

The eradication of certain infectious diseases, such as smallpox, polio, Guinea worm and rinderpest, is a testament to the fact that prevention can work. In addition, some pests can be controlled with cultural controls and the use of resistant varieties.

Lastly, chemicals are sometimes employed to control pests. They can be broad-spectrum or narrow-spectrum, organic or inorganic, and may act as nerve toxins, insect growth regulators or pheromone inhibitors. However, chemicals can be toxic to humans and non-target organisms and can persist in the environment affecting soil productivity and water supply. Therefore, they must be used with great caution and only when the alternatives are ineffective.