Author: Jonah Harper

Accurate pest identification is the first step in an effective pest control program. This helps the program to be designed and implemented with minimum harm to humans, property, and the environment.

The goal of most pest situations is prevention. Eradication is a rare goal. Suppression reduces populations to levels below those that cause unacceptable harm. Contact Pest Control Allen TX for professional expertise.

Attractants are a form of pest control that focuses on luring and capturing pests rather than repelling them. These can be used alone or in combination with traps or pesticides. The most common attractants are pheromones which can be natural or synthetic. These are highly specific and can be used to detect even the smallest infestations of a particular pest. Some attractants are based on food scents that the target pest enjoys such as peanut butter for rodents and floral or sugar-based lures for insects.

For a visual attractant, baits are often used in conjunction with a trap or pesticide. These are often designed to mimic the shape and appearance of a pest or the location where they have been seen. These are placed on a trap or bait station and are intended to be picked up by the pests when they visit the area. For example, baits might include a fake head or body of a dead insect or piece of fruit that is similar to a pest’s favorite food.

Odors are another effective attractant. These can be natural such as a flower’s fragrance or synthetic chemicals which mimic a pest’s odor and are designed to attract the target species. Usually, these attractants are combined with an odorless or very low toxicity pesticide.

A number of other olfactory stimuli can also be used to lure pests including plant volatiles, flower oils, spices, and sugars. These can be mixed with a very low toxicity pesticide or as a stand-alone product.

The use of odors and other sensory cues to control pests is referred to as olfactory or semiochemical pest management. This approach leverages the natural attraction systems of pests – such as sex pheromones for insects and aggregation pheromones for rodents – and allows these processes to be utilized in a more targeted manner than more generalized repellent products.

For example, a chemical known as pinene is an attractive scent for termites and can be mixed with very low-toxicity pesticides to capture these insects in a mass trapping strategy. This approach is a great example of how scientists can take advantage of the chemical communication system of urban pests to create new and more effective control strategies with fewer chemicals.

Repellents

The summer is a time for outdoor adventures, barbecues and family gatherings. However, if you live in an area that is plagued by insects that carry disease, pest repellents can be an important part of your defense system.

Repellents work by deterring or killing pests through direct contact or by disrupting their nervous systems. They are an important part of pest control for areas plagued by mosquitoes, ticks, ants and other disease-carrying insects.

In order to be effective, repellents must be used as directed. They should be reapplied as needed. Some of the most popular and effective chemical repellents include DEET, Picaridin, and IR 3535. These products are EPA-registered and offer protection from a wide range of biting and stinging insects. They also have good safety profiles when used according to label instructions.

Natural home remedies are also commonly touted for their ability to repel pests. However, their efficacy is often debated and can vary depending on concentration, application method, and environmental conditions. Some natural repellents include essential oils, botanical extracts, and herbs marketed for their insecticidal properties. The effectiveness of these natural repellents has been attributed to their unique smells and a possible disruption of pests’ sensory receptors.

Other natural repellents include citronella candles and torches, which can be useful in reducing the number of mosquitoes around an outdoor space. Mosquito coils, which use synthetic pyrethroids, are another option for indoor spaces and have been shown to be as effective as DEET when used as directed. However, these repellents are limited in their reach and can be dispersed by wind. Finally, ultrasonic pest repellers claim to deter bugs by emitting high-frequency sound waves that interfere with bug hearing and navigation.

While these options are helpful for many people, they cannot completely eliminate pest infestations. As a result, they are most effective as part of an integrated pest management (IPM) strategy. IPM is a holistic approach to pest management that includes prevention, monitoring, and targeted use of pesticides when necessary.

Biological Controls

Biological controls are living organisms – insects, mites, plants or bacteria – that feed on, parasitize or otherwise reduce the population of pests. They can also transmit plant-protecting genes to crop plants, increasing the ability of the plants to repel or withstand attack. Unlike synthetic chemicals, many biological control agents are not toxic to humans or livestock and do not pollute the environment. They can be used in a range of production systems from the home garden to commercial fields.

There are three broad ways that people use biological control to help suppress pests: importation, augmentation and conservation. Importation, also called classical or traditional biological control, involves bringing natural enemies from another country or region to control an introduced pest. Pests that originate in non-native environments often come without their native predators, parasites and diseases, allowing them to explode in size and outcompete native species for food or habitat. Importing the natural enemies of a particular pest from its country or region of origin and releasing them at the site where the pest occurs can be an effective way to bring these organisms into balance, restoring ecological and economic processes.

Another form of biological control is augmentation, which refers to the deliberate increase in the numbers of natural enemies of a pest. This can be accomplished through inoculative or inundative releases. Inoculative releases are a series of small releases that gradually build up the number of natural enemies to a desired level, whereas inundative releases rapidly overwhelm the pest population with a large number of the control organisms. Both methods require extensive preliminary research to develop a comprehensive understanding of the biology and ecology of both the pests and their natural enemies, as well as the environmental conditions into which the biological control agent will be released.

Lastly, conservation biocontrol involves enhancing the abundance of predators and parasitoids already present in an area or crop. This can be done by manipulating the crops’ microclimate, providing overwintering refuges (like “beetle banks”), encouraging natural enemies by removing or reducing the availability of their predatory and prey hosts, and providing other resources useful to them.

Physical Controls

Unlike chemical controls, physical or mechanical pest control methods directly manipulate the environment and living parts of the organism. This can include blocking access to food, water, shelter, or removing or killing the pest. Physical barriers include fences, netting and screens, whereas traps are often used in the garden and greenhouse to capture pests like moths, slugs and snails. Cultural practices can be as simple as improving sanitation and weed management or as complex as changing planting dates or plant spacing to reduce weed populations, altering soil nutrient levels to promote healthy plants and minimize disease pressure, and even using field burning and trap crops (like zinnias) to concentrate and kill Japanese beetles.

Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, refers to the use of preventive and nonchemical methods to manage pests. It includes scouting to identify the pest, learning about its biology and life cycle, determining what harm it causes, and then choosing a combination of tactics and monitoring the results. It’s important to use threshold-based decision making, meaning that you take action only when the amount of pest damage exceeds an acceptable level.

The goal of IPM is to avoid the need for pesticides, which are chemicals that harm people and the environment. IPM strategies are based on sound science and work with the natural balance of organisms at a treatment site. They usually involve prevention – keeping a pest from becoming a problem; suppression – reducing a pest population to an acceptable level; and eradication – destroying the pest organism.

Pests can thrive only as long as their roost, water and food sources remain available. Natural features such as mountains and bodies of water restrict the spread of some pests, while natural enemies such as parasitic wasps, predatory insects, nematodes and fungi naturally control others. Other ways to encourage natural enemies include introducing them into areas where pests are a problem, releasing large numbers of sterile insects, or adding pheromones that keep the earlier stages of a pest from developing into adult forms. These are known as biological control methods. The best-known example is the entoleter, an impacting machine that destroys all insect pests in flour; other postharvest methods include a hot-water immersion to kill tephritid fruit fly immatures in mangoes.