A pest is an organism that damages or degrades plants, animals, or structures. Control measures include prevention, suppression, and eradication. Contact Pest Control Columbia MO now!

– Physical: Hand-picking, sweeping, or spraying with water can reduce many pests. Soapy water will also suffocate some insects. Clutter provides hiding places for some pests. Traps work well when placed along pests’ typical routes.

A pest is any plant or animal that causes damage. It can also include diseases that affect plants and animals, such as plague or crop blights.

Some pests destroy buildings, crops, or property; others cause illness and discomfort. Pests can spread disease by stinging, biting, or carrying harmful bacteria and viruses. They can be insects, mites, fungi, or vertebrates, such as rodents, birds, or snakes.

The environment influences pests by influencing their food supply, shelter, and movement. Weather conditions, especially temperature and day length, may increase or decrease pest populations. Pests can also be killed or suppressed by predators, parasitoids, or pathogens.

Plants are damaged by pests when they feed on them, and the pathogens they carry can be transferred to healthy plants when those plants are eaten. Some pests, such as aphids and caterpillars, are carriers of plant diseases. They are a major problem for growers because the pathogens they transfer can drastically reduce yields.

Pest control is a continuous process that includes prevention, suppression, and eradication of pests and their damage. In addition, proper monitoring helps ensure that pest control tactics are working.

A comprehensive IPM program is an essential component of any facility’s operation. It requires the participation of everyone in the facility and a commitment to follow the program’s guidelines for responsible pest management. A trained pest control coordinator is an essential part of the IPM team, as they are responsible for developing and implementing strategies to manage pests in the facility. A facility’s pest control methods must be based on the results of an evaluation of the effectiveness of each tactic and an assessment of its risk to people and the environment.

Natural Forces

Using natural forces to control pests is one of the most ecologically sound ways to manage them. Biological control methods, ranging from pheromones and resistant plant varieties to parasites, pathogens, and predators, offer alternatives to toxic chemicals. While these methods may not be as rapid or efficient as synthetic products, they usually work more in harmony with the ecosystem. However, they still disturb the balance of organisms and must be viewed as backups in an overall pest reduction strategy.

Sanitation practices help reduce pest problems by limiting their access to food and shelter. Removing debris and eliminating overwintering sites can discourage many pests. Cleaning equipment and storage areas and decontaminating seeds, plants, and produce before moving them to a new location can also reduce pest carryover. In urban and industrial settings, improving cleanliness and garbage removal can lower the risk of pest contamination.

Abiotic environmental factors, such as temperature, light, moisture, and soil conditions, can also influence pests. Altering the amount or timing of water, using reflective mulches, and treating growing areas with radiation or electricity can sometimes prevent or suppress pests.

Chemical control includes any treatment or application of substances that kill or disrupt a pest’s life cycle or behavior. Federal, state, and local laws govern the use of pesticides to ensure that they are safe for human and animal health, the environment, and plants. Proper personal protection, reading product labels, and continuing education through workshops can minimize the risks of injury when applying these treatments. Some of the most common types of chemical pest controls are herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides. A few other common chemical pest control agents include nematodes and mycoplasmas.

Prevention

The most basic goal of pest control is prevention. In a garden or in a house, this involves monitoring pest populations and catching them before they reach damaging levels. It also means keeping plant and food supplies from being contaminated by pests or their droppings. Pests can damage structures or crops, carry disease-causing pathogens and spoil food or plants. In addition, they often cause unpleasant odors or other nuisances.

In many situations, prevention is the only practical option. When this is not possible, then the goals shift to suppression and/or eradication. Eradication is generally only attempted in outdoor areas where a specific pest species has been accidentally introduced and established. Eradication is also the primary goal of pest control in some enclosed environments, such as health care, food processing and catering facilities.

Some of the most serious pests, such as rats and cockroaches, are able to spread bacteria that can cause illness. Other pests can damage or degrade buildings, contaminate food, and make people uncomfortable.

Pests are attracted to homes and commercial and retail environments for a variety of reasons. These include:

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) combines prevention, suppression and/or eradication with methods that take advantage of natural forces to reduce the use of toxic chemicals. It starts with a careful evaluation of each pest infestation, taking into account its life cycle, potential damage and the impact of weather on its population growth. It also considers the presence of natural enemies, the existence of barriers that may limit their movement and the availability of food and water. Diseases of insects are also considered because they can significantly reduce the rate at which pests eat, grow and reproduce, and can halt their activity altogether.

Suppression

Pests can be harmful to humans, in addition to their impact on other species and the ecosystems they inhabit. They can contaminate food, spread disease in buildings and make asthma and other health conditions worse for building occupants. Keeping pest populations under control helps protect human health and safety in many ways, including physically removing rodents and insects from homes and retail or food preparation environments; reducing the spread of dangerous bacteria that can contaminate surfaces, foods and drinking water; and decreasing the amount of pest-borne feces and intestinal worms in people’s homes.

In outdoor pest situations, the goals of prevention and suppression are often combined; the goal is to prevent the pest population from rising to a level that causes unacceptable harm, and then to suppress it to that point. Preventing a pest problem from occurring is usually more cost-effective than controlling a fully established pest population.

The aims of a pest management strategy may also include eradication, although this is less common in outdoor areas because of the difficulty of destroying an entire species. Eradication may be a desirable goal in indoor environments, however, such as in hospitals and office buildings.

In general, pests are undesirable organisms (insects, nematodes, fungi, mites, viruses, vertebrates and other animals) that damage, devalue or destroy crops, garden plants, trees, lawns, homes and other human structures and affect soil quality, nutrient content, water availability and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They also impose a financial burden on society by increasing the costs of crop production, food processing and storage, animal husbandry and building maintenance. Pests can be a significant nuisance in residential communities as well, particularly when they infest apartment complexes. Professional FM companies offer pest control services to apartment owners, managers and tenants to help keep pests from infesting apartments and posing a health hazard for residents.

Eradication

Eradication means bringing pest numbers or damage below an acceptable threshold where intervention measures are no longer needed. This is an extremely difficult goal in outdoor situations where pests are free to migrate and reproduce. Eradication is more feasible in enclosed environments, such as in buildings or greenhouses, where pest control options are less restricted. Examples of successful eradication campaigns include the removal of malaria from many countries and the elimination of smallpox and rinderpest.

Preventive pest control practices reduce conditions that promote pest infestations and suppress the growth of existing infestations. Examples of preventive strategies include frequently cleaning areas where pests are likely to congregate, properly storing food and materials, and planting plants that attract natural predators and parasites.

Suppression methods slow the rate of growth of a pest population by denying it the food, water, shelter, or temperature it needs to survive and thrive. Denying these elements can be as simple as mulching around sun-loving plants to deprive weed seeds of the sunlight they require for germination or by placing screens on windows to stop fruit flies from flying into a room.

Chemical pest control involves the use of toxic chemicals to kill or disrupt a pest’s life cycle. These chemicals may be herbicides to kill weeds, insecticides to kill insects, or fungicides to manage diseases. Chemicals are often used as a last resort when other management practices have failed. They must be carefully identified and selected and applied according to label instructions.

The word eradicate comes from the Latin eradicare, meaning “to pull up by the roots.” This is a fitting figurative application for the practice of pest control, as it refers to removing or eliminating a pest problem. The related words exterminate, extirpate, and uproot have similar meanings: to destroy or drive out a pest by any means necessary.