Crawling pests include rodents (rats and mice), spiders, millipedes, and centipedes. They can produce venom and transmit diseases to humans.
Keep spaces clean and free of clutter that provides hiding places for pests. Seal cracks and crevices to eliminate outside entry. Contact St Charles Pest Control now!
Use traps and baits in targeted areas where pests live or hide. Use pesticides sparingly and with care to prevent harming pets or people.
Pest Identification
Identifying pests is the first step in integrated pest management (IPM). Knowing how the pest looks, where it lives, and what it eats can help map out an IPM strategy that controls the pest without using harmful chemicals.
Proper identification can also prevent the indiscriminate spraying of chemicals. Many people are quick to kill any organism they assume is a pest, but these insects or mites are often harmless or helpful. Some, like ants and booklice, are beneficial predators that help to control aphids and other sucking pests. Others, such as bees and wasps, parasitize scale insects, keeping their numbers low.
When a pest does cause problems, proper identification can help to determine its life cycle and the timing of when it is most vulnerable to control measures. Many insect species look different depending on the stage of their life cycle or their season, and correct identification can make a difference in successful pest control.
For example, an aphid in its immature form looks very different from a fully grown aphid. Similarly, a weed seedling can look very different from its mature plant form. IPM strategies are most effective when applied at the time of the year or stage of development when the pest is most susceptible to control measures.
Field scouting is the foundation of IPM, and accurate pest identification is one of the most important aspects of a scouting program. By monitoring a garden, landscape or crop and identifying pest populations and damage, the information can be used to determine whether the pest is a problem that requires treatment and which control methods are most appropriate.
IPM programs often rely on conserving the natural enemies of pests rather than using chemical treatments to reduce pest populations. Natural enemy populations are monitored, and conditions that promote their success are promoted as much as possible. If a natural enemy population is in decline, efforts are made to restore it by providing favorable habitat or alternative food sources. If chemical treatment is necessary, products that minimize the impact on the natural enemy are used.
Pest Prevention
Pests are more than unwelcome guests; they carry disease and damage property. Moreover, some pests such as bedbugs and rodents pose health risks for humans. The best way to protect against pests is to prevent them from entering our facilities in the first place. This can be done by a combination of strategies.
Prevention begins by removing sources of food, water, and shelter for pests. It also includes eliminating conditions that make a location more attractive to the pests. Clutter provides hiding places for pests and makes it hard to detect signs of infestation. Regularly sweep floors and wipe down surfaces with a disinfecting cleaner. Keep trash receptacles away from entrances and empty them regularly. Keep trees and shrubbery properly trimmed to eliminate overgrowth that may provide entry points for pests. Seal cracks and crevices with caulking or steel wool, especially where pipes enter structures. Store foods in sealed containers, and fix leaky plumbing.
Vigilance in monitoring and reporting of pests to the PCO is critical to preventing their infestation and spread. In addition to being a good citizen, this practice helps the PCO decide whether and when control is necessary. The goal of controlling a pest is to reduce its numbers to a point that does not cause unacceptable harm.
Monitoring involves checking the field, landscape, building or forest for pests and determining how many are present and what kind of damage they have caused. This information can be used to determine if a pest is a continuous pest that should receive routine management, or a sporadic or migratory pest that requires control only under certain circumstances. Monitoring also involves knowing how long the pests live and their life cycles, as some control methods are only effective at specific stages of development.
Preventing pests from becoming problems requires knowledge of their biology, habits, and habitats, as well as the ability to anticipate their needs. It is also helpful to understand the role of natural forces that influence pest populations. For example, the weather affects the growth of all organisms, including pests, and can help or hinder pest control efforts.
Pesticides
A pesticide is any substance that has been intentionally introduced to prevent, destroy, repel or mitigate a pest. A pesticide can also be used to modify the morphology of a pest or cause it to function in a different way (for example, promoting growth or slowing molting). The term pesticide is sometimes confused with insecticides, herbicides and fungicides; however, the latter three types are only used to control plants, while pesticides are intended to control insects, weeds and disease organisms.
There are many pesticides available, and the mode of action (how the pesticide works) is usually specified on the product label. A pesticide can be liquid, solid or powdered, and may be absorbed through the skin (dermal) or inhaled. All pesticides are toxic to some degree. The toxicity of a pesticide is measured on the basis of its acute (single-dose) oral and dermal LD50 values. The higher the LD50 value, the more toxic the pesticide. In general, highly toxic materials are marked DANGER and POISON on the label.
The type of pesticide used to control a particular pest is often determined by its effectiveness, cost and environmental impact. In some cases, eradication of a pest is desired, but this is generally a rare goal in outdoor situations (except in the case of exotic or invasive pests).
Most pesticides act by killing or otherwise disturbing organisms. However, they can also contaminate soil, water and food sources. They may also be absorbed into people and animals through the skin or inhalation, and can break down or accumulate in fat tissues. They can also be transported by wind or rain and reach places they are not wanted, such as lakes, rivers and streams.
There are a number of things that can be done to minimize the need for pesticides, such as selecting high-quality seed and sod and practicing good cultural practices in the field. For example, drain any puddles that collect water, as mosquitoes breed in them; keep birds and other mammals away from fields treated with pesticides; and maintain healthy trees, shrubs and lawns through proper irrigation, fertilization and mowing.
Biological Control
Biological control is the use of living organisms (parasites, pathogens, predators or disease agents) to reduce pest numbers. This type of pest management requires more knowledge about the pest and its natural enemies than does chemical control, and can take longer to achieve adequate results. Biological control is especially useful for environmentally sensitive crops and for low-unit-value crops that would be uneconomical to spray with chemicals.
The most important way that growers can contribute to the development of effective biological control is by conserving naturally occurring natural enemies. These organisms are adapted to the local environment and to specific pests, and are therefore more likely to be effective than organisms introduced from other places. Many of these natural enemies can be readily recognized; for example, lacewings and lady beetles in the field, hover fly larvae, or parasitized aphid mummies in aphid colonies. Other natural enemies, such as nematodes and plant pathogens, are less well-known but can be equally effective in controlling insect and mite pests.
In classical biological control, also known as importation or inoculative biological control, researchers travel to the pest’s native habitat to study and collect its natural enemies, then ship promising natural enemies back to be tested for their ability to reduce the pest population. This approach is most common in cases where exotic pests have become widespread in their new locations without the benefit of natural controls. Classical biological control is usually regulated by the same rules as other pest control activities, including regulations for importation of exotic species and quarantine.
Augmentative biological control is similar to classic biological control but involves releasing only the predators, pathogens, or disease agents that have been tested for their effectiveness in controlling the pest. This method can be used in place of or in addition to other pest control strategies, and is more likely to succeed when a variety of techniques are used, such as the simultaneous application of nonpersistent sprays that will reduce the risk of disrupting the organisms’ activity.
Regardless of the terminology used, all biological control approaches have significant social, environmental and economic benefits. It is important to note, however, that these benefits are only realized if the biological control agents are actually responsible for the observed protective effects on the crop. It is important to remember that it is not the organisms themselves that provide these benefits but rather their ability to manipulate the host plant’s response to abiotic stress, such as induction of elicitors.