Pests like rodents, ants, and ticks can carry diseases that are harmful to humans. They can cause bacterial infections like salmonella and streptococcus as well as parasitic illnesses like plague, typhus, and flea-borne spotted fever.
Taking preventative steps is the best way to control pest infestations. Clean living spaces regularly, remove food sources and store garbage properly. Seal entry points and repair leaky plumbing. Contact Kansas City Pest Control now!
Natural forces are those – living or nonliving – that interact with pests in ways that limit their damage. Examples include predators, parasites, herbivorous insects, pathogens, soil fungi, and other organisms. These interactions are balanced by abiotic factors such as weather and soil conditions, food availability, and competition.
When a pest population’s natural balance is disrupted, other biotic and abiotic controls can be employed to regain control. This includes introducing new natural enemies or adjusting existing ones to better match the needs of a particular habitat.
These biological pest control tools include predators, parasitoids, fungi and pathogens, as well as a variety of other natural (chemical-free) remedies, such as plant extracts, oils, minerals and foods. These tools can be useful for a wide range of pests, and are often easier to work with than conventional chemical pesticides. However, it’s important to classify a pest before trying any remedies. Different solutions will work on different pests, and a single solution may repel one pest but harm another. For this reason, it’s a good idea to keep notes on what works and doesn’t work for a given pest.
Using natural methods to control pests has the added benefit of being healthier for people, pets and the environment. Most of these remedies are also much less expensive than conventional chemicals, making them a viable option for many gardeners.
The classic method of biocontrol is to find the natural enemy of a specific pest in its native habitat, then introduce it to its new location and hope that it will become established and reproduce. This approach is most commonly used for introduced or “exotic” pests.
Predators of insects include birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals that feed on many species of insect; omnivores such as ground beetles, rove beetles and other predatory insects; and insectivorous plants such as venus fly traps. Bacteria and fungi are also important insect predators, including bacillus thuringiensis (“Bt”) (many caterpillar pests), aphids, and nematodes such as Steinernema and Heterorhabditis.
While biocontrol can be effective, it is not usually a means of pest eradication. Like other pest management tactics, it requires maintenance of a sufficient level of natural enemy numbers to suppress the pest population and prevent it from rebounding. It is also vulnerable to disruption by other pest control practices, such as the use of broad-spectrum pesticides, which kill both the target pest and its natural enemies.
Pesticides
A pesticide is any substance used for “preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest” (NPIC, 2018a). This includes products such as insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides and fungicides. There are many different types of pesticides, which vary by their toxicity to living things, mobility and environmental hazards. It is important to get specific information about the pesticide you are using before applying it, and always follow instructions and safety precautions on the product label.
The effectiveness of pesticides can vary, depending on the location and conditions where they are used. In a laboratory setting, some chemicals may kill off a significant percentage of the target species in order to measure their effectiveness; however, that same chemical can be highly toxic to other organisms in a natural environment. This can depress populations of natural enemies and allow pests to reach damaging levels at a much faster rate.
Insecticides target insects and use a variety of methods to kill them, including disrupting nerve impulse transmission, attacking the nervous system or causing paralysis. Herbicides target plants and have similar effects. Fungicides kill fungi, and can also be used to control disease in crops or garden beds. Many pesticides, especially older ones containing organochlorines and other synthetic chemicals, are persistent in the environment, meaning that they do not break down naturally in soil or water. This can cause toxic impacts to wildlife, fish and people.
Several factors influence how effective a particular pesticide will be in the field, including its chemical makeup and how it is applied. Different pesticides may have acute or chronic effects; the former is a result of a single exposure and can include symptoms such as headache, dizziness, muscular twitching, nausea and skin problems. The latter results from repeated exposures at lower doses over a longer period of time. In some cases, these can lead to cancers, reproductive harms and immune system disruption.
Before any pesticide can be sold and used, it must go through a rigorous approval process at the federal, provincial and municipal level, and meet the requirements set out in the Canadian Pesticide Regulations. These include tests to make sure the chemical is safe for human and animal use, as well as testing to ensure it does what it claims on its label.
Suppression
Pest control is the effort to protect people from disease-carrying organisms, preserve agriculture and food supplies, protect property from damage, and maintain ecological balance by keeping invasive species from disrupting ecosystems. Pests include insects (e.g., ants, cockroaches, termites), rodents (e.g., rats, mice), birds, weeds, and other unwanted organisms. Pest management involves using physical, biological, and chemical methods to remove the organisms from areas where they cause unacceptable harm.
Prevention and suppression are the primary goals of pest control, but eradication may also be attempted. Eradication is most common in enclosed environments, such as health care, food processing and preparation facilities, and animal breeding sites. In outdoor pest situations, eradication is often impossible to achieve because the organisms that make up an ecosystem usually interact in complex ways.
For example, a pest’s presence can lead to the contamination of food products by microorganisms and foreign substances (e.g., rodent droppings and urine), physical contamination by insects or their parts, or the introduction of disease-causing agents. In health care settings, there is often a zero tolerance for the presence of pests in operating rooms and other sterile areas.
Physical pest control includes traps, screens, barriers, fences, and other mechanical means to keep organisms out or to kill them. In some cases, the environment can be altered to prevent a pest from prospering, such as by altering the amount of water available or the temperature of an area.
Biological pest control uses natural enemies to suppress the growth of unwanted organisms. This may involve releasing predators, parasites, or pathogens into the environment to eat or infect pests. It also can involve introducing beneficial organisms, such as microbes engineered from bacteria, to feed on the pest population and help it decline.
Some types of plants, animals, and wood are resistant to pests. Using resistant varieties, when available, reduces the need for pesticide use by making it difficult for the organisms to be seriously damaged. Chemicals in the host organism can also repel or inhibit pests, as with the pheromones that deter the moths that do so much damage to woollen clothing and other natural fibres.
Prevention
Pests are any animal or plant that, when present in a food processing environment, may cause either biological or physical contamination. They include rodents (e.g. Black and Brown rats and mice), crawling insects, flies, ants, houseflies, cockroaches, and slugs and snails. They also include birds such as pigeons and seagulls, and weeds and plant pathogens. The presence of pests in food products and services risks staff and customers’ health, as well as the reputation of the business.
The aim of prevention is to reduce the conditions that allow pests to flourish. This involves examining the nature of the pests, their habitats, and the environmental conditions that favour them. Monitoring can take the form of trapping, scouting and observing damage. Monitoring of insect, insect-like, mollusk and vertebrate pests is usually done by trapping, while weed and microbial pest monitoring can be done through visual observation and the use of a variety of techniques such as soil sampling and moisture levels (especially humidity).
Preventive measures are economic and environmentally responsible ways to reduce the conditions that encourage pest infestation. They can involve removing food sources, removing or covering attracting items, and blocking access to water, shelter and other needs of the pests. In addition, removing clogging and litter provides fewer places for pests to breed and hide. Finally, it is important to correctly identify pests because some control measures will only be effective on the correct species of pest.
Integrated pest management (IPM) is an approach that combines preventive and suppression methods of pest control to maximise efficiency and minimise the use of chemicals. Ideally, IPM begins with preventive methods such as changing environmental conditions, habitat manipulation, and cultural controls, and only when these are insufficient is it considered appropriate to use pesticides.
For example, reducing the amount of moisture in the soil can help to prevent root disease, and changing irrigation practices can reduce excessive watering which may increase plant diseases. The use of pesticides is also minimised by targeting only the organisms that are causing damage, and by applying them in such a way that they do not affect beneficial or non-target organisms.