Pests can damage your plants, crops and property. They can also carry pathogens that can cause disease in people and animals.
Natural features such as mountains and large bodies of water limit the spread of many pests. Natural enemies of pests, such as parasites and predators, often help control populations. Contact Pest Control Randolph NJ now!
Practicing preventive pest control is the most efficient and responsible way to deal with pest problems. Rather than resorting to quick and aggressive treatments, it empowers technicians to address issues while upholding environmentally conscious practices and responsible methods. Prevention focuses on identifying and eliminating the conditions that attract pests in order to avoid infestations altogether. This means keeping a clean environment, sealing cracks and crevices, and reducing the presence of standing water around properties.
Clutter: Clutter provides ideal places for pests to breed and hide and it also makes it harder to keep your home or business sanitary and free of pests. Stacks of papers, magazines, and cardboard are all ideal hiding spots for rodents and insects. Clutter can be eliminated by regularly sweeping and vacuuming and by properly storing food in containers with tight lids. In addition, ensuring that trash cans are properly sealed and disposed of can help keep pests away from your property.
Sealing: Cracks and crevices give pests easy access into homes and businesses, so it is important to regularly inspect and seal these entry points. Proper caulking, insulation installation, and the use of weather stripping can make your property much less susceptible to unwanted pests.
Landscaping: Overgrown trees, bushes, and plants can provide rodents, ants, and other pests with a highway of access to your home or business. Regularly removing leaf litter and trimming shrubs and bushes can greatly reduce the number of pests entering your property.
Predictive Inspections: Routine inspections by both you and a professional can alert you to pest infestations in the early stages, when they are easiest to treat. By observing signs like spider webs and other indications of pest activity, you can nip a problem in the bud.
Pest Identification: The earliest stage of pest detection involves learning more about the habits and preferred habitat of your targeted pest. Understanding their life cycle and feeding preferences can help you select a more effective control strategy. It is also important to be mindful of the harmful pests that share the same space as the pest you are targeting, so you can ensure that the controls you choose do not kill these beneficial insects.
Suppression
Biological control uses predators, parasites and pathogens to reduce pest populations to levels that do not cause damage. These natural enemies are usually indigenous to the area, but their effectiveness depends on the type of plant or animal being attacked and the overall ecosystem context. A complex web of interactions exists between a variety of species, with the overall effect ranging from additive to antagonistic to synergistic.1,2
Predator species such as birds, reptiles and mammals may feed on or kill some pests. Parasitic organisms such as parasitoids and nematodes also attack insect pests. Diseases that attack the nervous system of insects slow or stop their growth, reproduction and feeding, and often kill them.1,2
Pest suppression usually involves the monitoring of pest populations and the use of appropriate management tactics when they reach a damaging level. Damage can be measured in terms of decreased crop yields or the aesthetic appearance of ornamental plants. Every grower and gardener has a different tolerance for plant damage, which may also vary by planting type or environment.
Sanitation practices can prevent or reduce the occurrence of many pests by reducing their food sources and shelter. Insect pests, for example, can be prevented from entering greenhouses by cleaning trays, equipment and walls. In the field, soil sanitation and scouting for pests can help to identify and correct conditions that favor their development. Pesticides can be used to kill or slow the growth of pests, but care must be taken in integrating these chemicals with environmental and economic considerations. The use of less persistent pesticides, spot applications in areas of high pest density, and treatment of alternating strips within fields can minimize the impact on the population of natural enemies.
A variety of factors affect the strength of pest suppression by natural enemies, including trophic interactions between predators and parasitoids, overlapping life cycles of the enemy and its prey and interspecific competition (such as when the immature predator eats the eggs or larvae of its own parent). The ability to predict and understand these impacts is an important step in developing effective biological control programs.
Eradication
Pests can cause significant health problems, as well as damage crops and property. They are often visible, such as rodents scurrying across floors or cockroaches hiding in crevices. Other clues are sounds, odors or damage to food packages or personal items. Some pests can bite or sting, like cluster flies and fleas, or leave droppings that are a source of disease. Some have a frightening or grotesque appearance, as in the case of spiders and silverfish. And some, such as mud dauber wasps and yellow-jackets, can attack or even kill humans.
Pest control aims to reduce or eliminate these unwanted creatures. The process begins with an inspection of the premises to identify the extent of the infestation and locate entry points, nesting areas and other sources of moisture, food and shelter. Once the inspector determines the level of pest problem, a customized treatment plan is developed. This plan may include spraying, baiting, dusting or trapping to remove the pests.
Prevention is a key element of pest control, and there are several do-it-yourself solutions that can be effective. Regularly cleaning floors, counters and storage areas, sealing open food and disposing of garbage promptly can significantly reduce the presence of pests in homes and businesses. Sealing cracks and repairing windows, installing sweeps and astragals to fill gaps under doors, and keeping compost bins and trash containers tightly sealed can also be helpful in deterring pests from accessing buildings.
For outdoor spaces, removing debris and standing water can help prevent mosquitoes from breeding, while properly maintaining garden ponds can keep flies away from vegetables. Regularly weeding and thinning overgrown gardens can discourage slugs, snails, nematodes and other pests that prey on plants.
Chemical controls can be an important part of pest control, especially in agriculture, where a variety of crop protection products are used to protect plants from insects, weeds and diseases. In homes, insecticides are used to control ants, roaches, and other common pests.
In addition, fumigation can be a good option for controlling stored product pests and termites, particularly in wooded areas that are difficult to treat directly. However, fumigants are dangerous to human health and should only be used when other methods of control have been attempted.
Integrated Pest Management
Integrated pest management (IPM) is the best way to control pests in gardens, farms, and other landscapes. It uses preventive, biological, cultural, and physical methods to reduce damage and minimize risks to people and the environment.
IPM starts with monitoring and identifying pests correctly. This information tells you how bad a problem is and whether it warrants control. It also helps you select the most effective control method and determine when to use it. Monitoring also includes learning about the life cycle, biology, damage, and environmental factors of each pest, so you can decide if they can be tolerated or need to be controlled.
The next step is using nonchemical measures to prevent or suppress the growth of harmful organisms. These include cultural controls (such as crop rotation, choosing disease-resistant varieties, and maintaining sanitary practices in greenhouses) and physical or mechanical controls (such as traps for rodents and removing their food sources).
Sometimes natural enemies, such as parasitoids, predators, and pathogens, can keep populations of garden pests under control. For example, green june beetle grubs and millipedes are natural enemies of the lawn-destroying grub, and the presence of these insects in a garden or yard can lower grub populations naturally.
Chemicals that disrupt a pest’s normal functions, such as those used in IPM, are called biorational or “biological” chemicals. Some of these biorational chemicals are bacteria, fungi, and viruses that target specific pests and cause them to die. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacterium that kills caterpillars by attacking their midgut. There are more than 400 Bt strains that target different insect species.
Integrated pest management is supported by federal law, 7 U.S.C. 136r, which requires agencies to use IPM whenever possible. IPM can be applied in all types of agricultural production, landscapes, military bases, and public and private buildings and grounds including schools, hospitals, parks, and other recreational areas.
UC ANR works to promote the adoption of IPM by developing educational materials and providing advice to growers, growers’ associations, and other partners. To learn more about IPM or to find local IPM resources, contact your UC ANR Cooperative Extension office.