Entropic Landscapes

Pests can damage crops or other property and may pose health risks. Correct identification of a pest is critical to successful control.

Natural forces affecting pest populations include climate, natural enemies, overwintering sites, and food and water supplies. Contact Seaside Pest Control now!

Mechanical or physical controls can be used to eliminate or prevent some pests. Examples include traps, screens, barriers, and fences.

Preventive methods are economical and environmentally responsible ways to reduce or eliminate the conditions that promote pest infestation. They include frequently cleaning areas where pests are likely to live, reducing food sources, and removing shelter. These techniques help control new pest populations before they become a significant problem. They can also limit the damage done by existing pests. Preventive measures may be applied at the building, residential, or landscape level.

Eliminate Entry Points

Seal cracks and crevices with caulk or steel wool to prevent outside pests from entering your home. Remove weeds, brush, and other debris that could provide hiding places for rodents and other pests. Keep trash cans tightly closed, and take out the garbage regularly. Clean up discarded wood and cardboard where pests can hide.

It is impossible to avoid pests entirely, but preventive efforts can make living with them more bearable. Pests cause physical damage to buildings and their contents, contaminate food, transmit diseases (e.g., cockroaches can carry bacteria that cause food poisoning), and aggravate asthma and allergies.

In addition to preventing pests, there are ways to minimize the pesticides needed to achieve desired results—for example, select varieties of plants and wood that are more resistant to pests, if available. Use traps, barriers, and fences to exclude pests from certain areas. Water and light management can also suppress some pests by making their environment unfavorable.

When using pesticides, follow the product label instructions carefully. Stay within the recommended application rate. Always store and use pesticides safely, away from children and pets. Be aware that long-term exposure to some pesticides can be harmful. Read the labels’ warnings and observe local, state, and federal pesticide regulations. Avoid purchasing or applying illegal pesticides, which can be sold by street vendors and may contain dangerous chemicals. Also, pesticides should only be purchased from reputable stores that sell them in the original container. Buying from street vendors can increase your exposure to hazardous substances and may result in illegal possession of the product. If you are unsurestill determining whether a pesticide is safe for your situation, consult an expert.

Suppression

Generally, pests are unwanted organisms that damage or devalue crops, foods, trees, lawns, gardens, homes, or other human-made structures. They may also contaminate food and water sources, disrupt natural ecosystems, and cause injury to humans or other living things. Pests include insects, fungi, nematodes, plant diseases, vertebrates, and weeds. Monitoring pest populations involves observing the presence and identifying the numbers of the pests, as well as checking for the damage they do. Monitoring of insect, mollusk, and vertebrate pests usually includes trapping or scouting; monitoring of weeds and plant diseases often involves visual inspection.

Many factors influence the growth and behavior of pests, including climate, natural enemies, natural barriers, available shelter, food and water supplies, and other environmental conditions. These influences are usually beyond the control of humans, but they should be taken into account when deciding on pest management strategies.

Biological controls, such as parasitoids that attack and kill their host pests, are used to manage many pest populations. Chemical controls include a wide variety of products that kill or repel pests, such as insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. These can be synthetic or natural, and they are commonly used in pest control programs.

Mechanical and physical controls kill or block a pest directly, or they make the environment unsuitable for it. For example, traps for rodents; netting in greenhouses to prevent fruit fly and other pests from entering; and mulches to inhibit weed growth are all mechanical or physical controls.

Regulatory control is rarely necessary for outdoor areas, but it is sometimes needed for indoor spaces such as operating rooms and other sterile areas of health care facilities where zero tolerance for bacteria exists. Eradication of a pest is a difficult goal in outdoor areas, but it is occasionally attempted when it becomes a serious nuisance, such as with the Mediterranean fruit fly or gypsy moths.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is the most efficient and economical way to manage pests. It combines all the control methods described above into a workable plan that keeps pests below levels that would cause economic damage.

Eradication

Pests may be dangerous, like fleas and mosquitoes that spread disease or rodents that chew through electrical wiring. Some have a repulsive appearance, such as spiders and silverfish, or cause unpleasant smells, like stink bugs. Others destroy property, crops or gardens, such as ants, rats and mice. Still others contaminate food or feed, like squirrels, woodpeckers and pigeons. Pests can also trigger allergic reactions or sensitivities, such as those caused by aphids, cockroaches and wasps.

The goal of eradication is not usually practical in outdoor pest situations, because the environment and local ecology determine how quickly organisms can regenerate after being eliminated. Ideally, a pest should be controlled to the point where its reproduction rate drops below a threshold level at which it will no longer pose a threat to plants or animals that can tolerate its presence. This often requires a combination of control methods.

For example, a biological control program might use parasites or predators to reduce the number of pests. If these natural enemies cannot keep the population below a certain level, then other control measures might need to be introduced, such as sterile insect releases or hormone treatments.

Some types of pests, such as invasive species that threaten natural ecosystems, can become more widespread and harder to eradicate because of the disruption of native habitats and the introduction of human disturbances that increase their rates of reproduction or survival. Eradication of such species is usually accomplished only with the cooperation of many nations, companies and agencies.

Homeowners can help prevent or limit pest problems by taking steps to keep their homes and environments clean. They can seal cracks and crevices, especially those around doors, windows and seams; trim back bushes and branches that hang over the house; and remove debris such as woodpiles and piles of leaves or grass clippings that could serve as shelter for pests. They can also spray a light mist of water, such as from a hose or nozzle, over garden beds and vegetables to promote good air circulation and discourage pests. Lastly, they can try essential oils that have bug-repelling properties, such as peppermint oil, or diatomaceous earth, which is made from the fossilized remains of tiny marine organisms and dehydrates and kills pests like ants and roaches.

IPM

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a broad-based system that integrates preventive, biological and chemical control methods to reduce pest numbers and damage. It focuses on long-term prevention of pests and their damage through a combination of techniques such as habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties. It also includes monitoring and assessment to determine whether or when control measures are needed. IPM uses pesticides only after a thorough evaluation has been made and only when necessary and when the use of chemicals will not harm people or nontarget plants.

IPM programs monitor and scout to detect pests and their damage. This helps them to identify pests accurately and to establish action threshold levels — the point at which environmental conditions or pest populations indicate that control measures should be taken. This prevents the unnecessary use of costly and hazardous pesticides.

Before a treatment decision is made, the IPM program evaluates all available options. This includes the life cycles of the pest, the presence of natural enemies, weather patterns and other factors to decide if any control measures are appropriate. If pesticides are used, only the safest and least-toxic products are chosen. Biological controls, such as the deliberate release of predators or parasitoids to kill damaging pests, are often more effective than chemicals.

Because IPM programs focus on the management of pests, not their elimination, they do less harm to the natural ecosystem and to human health. The goal is a healthy, balanced ecosystem with a diversity of species that live in harmony together.

You can implement IPM techniques in your garden with simple tools and a little time. For example, you can put up stretch netting to stop marauding birds from picking your raspberry or blackberry bushes and to keep squirrels from raiding the feeders. You can install rodent traps to keep pockets of gophers and other destructive pests away from your vegetable garden. And you can use hand pruners to cut off damaged branches or stems from trees and shrubs, thus reducing the spread of disease. You can also start a garden journal or spreadsheet to record the condition of your landscape plants and any insect or disease activity you see.