Pests can cause economic losses by contaminating food, damaging plants and structures, or transmitting disease. Good pest management focuses on prevention, suppression and eradication with the least disturbance to nontarget organisms and the environment.

Prevention methods reduce the attractiveness of a site to pests by limiting their access to food, water and shelter. Examples include draining swamps and eliminating standing water, sealing cracks in walls, and removing debris and weeds. Connect with Pest Control Springfield MO for reliable help.

If you see a pest, or suspect a pest infestation, the first step in an effective control program is accurate identification. This will allow you to determine if the pest needs to be controlled, which control tactics are most appropriate, and the amount of treatment required.

Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or a pest management professional, correct identification of a pest is vital to the success of any pest control program. Many pests have different physical forms depending on the stage of their life cycle or time of year, so a thorough inspection is necessary to accurately identify a pest.

For example, a weed seedling can look very different than the mature plant, and insect species go through many stages from egg to larva to pupa to adult, all of which have different physical characteristics. Correct identification will also help you understand the damage caused by the pest and how it can be corrected.

In general, pest identification is based on morphological features, such as the structure of the mouthparts or wings. If you don’t have the expertise to identify a pest, several resources can be used to get assistance. Some of these include the Internet, printed guides to weeds and insects, county extension services, commodity or industry organizations, state land grant universities, and pest management professionals.

The Internet is a boundless, but sometimes questionable source of information, and it is important to use caution when researching pests. There is a lot of inaccurate information on the Web, so be sure to consult reliable sources when attempting to identify a pest or bug.

A reputable pest control company will send an inspector to the site and thoroughly examine the property and home. He or she will look “under, around, behind and on top” of areas that pests may be hiding. The inspector will then make a recommendation for treatment based on the type and extent of the infestation.

Pests like cockroaches, ants, flies and rodents can cause serious health problems in humans. They can spread bacteria and viruses that can lead to illness. They can also contaminate food and destroy plants. They can even deteriorate furniture and woodwork. It’s important to call a pest control professional as soon as you notice the first signs of an infestation.

Prevention

Pest prevention is an important part of any pest management program. It involves removing conditions that attract and support pest activity such as food, water, and shelter. In residential settings, this includes regularly removing garbage from containers and keeping foods and dishes stored in sealed plastic or glass. In commercial facilities, it means instituting good sanitation practices and repairing leaky pipes or windows to prevent pests from finding moisture in and around food storage areas.

Preventive methods can also include sealing cracks and gaps in walls and foundations, maintaining proper food storage practices to avoid leaving out food or putting it where pests can get at it, and regularly inspecting a facility for signs of pests. It also involves educating staff about pests, their life cycles, and what they can do to help prevent them from coming into the workplace or home.

When a pest infestation is detected, preventing it from becoming widespread should be the first priority. Threshold-based decision making focuses on determining whether the pests are causing unacceptable harm and if control measures will be cost-effective and safe for people and the environment.

Pests often go through multiple developmental stages, which can be very difficult to see or distinguish. It is critical to understand pests’ full life cycle, from egg, nymph, and pupa to adult. This allows for more accurate monitoring of pest population trends and helps determine when control measures may be necessary.

Suppression is often used to reduce a pest population below an acceptable threshold, especially when it is causing unacceptable damage or is present in public areas such as health care, schools, and office buildings. Suppression strategies typically involve the use of pesticides. However, the use of pesticides should be limited to the most necessary applications and done in a way that minimizes risk.

Eradication is rarely the goal of pest control, but when it is needed, it usually involves destroying or removing all parts of a pest habitat. This can be very challenging to achieve, and the success of such an effort depends on a number of factors including:

Suppression

As the name suggests, suppression is the action of reducing pest populations. It involves a variety of tactics and can be achieved using prevention, cultural practices, physical control methods or chemical application. The underlying goal is to reduce the number of pests without harming human health, environment or economy. The tactics used are carefully evaluated to ensure the lowest possible disturbance to the ecosystem. These can include planting disease-free seeds or transplants, avoiding overwatering or fungicide application, cleaning tillage and harvesting equipment between fields or operations, field sanitation procedures, and eliminating alternate host or feeding sites for insect pests (for example, weeds like queen Anne’s lace and London rocket).

Natural enemies are organisms that feed on or parasitize pests to reduce their numbers or prevent damage. They are important components of most ecosystems and are usually less expensive than chemical pesticides. Examples of natural enemies include predators, parasitoids, pathogens and nematodes. The effectiveness of natural enemies in controlling pests depends on the balance between prey and predator species, their ability to compete with one another, and their interaction with crop plants. The relative roles of these factors vary with the ecosystem in which they are operating and the type of pest being controlled.

Threshold-based decision making is the process of determining whether a pest requires control. This is usually done by scouting and monitoring the pest population over time. For instance, seeing a few wasps around the house every day doesn’t require any action, but finding wasps around the home at night might indicate a nest is nearby and needs to be located and destroyed.

Many pests are sporadic and only need to be controlled intermittently or as necessary. Continuously recurring pests like cockroaches, flies, spiders and rodents, however, require regular control to minimize their impact on the human environment. Other pests may only be a problem when their presence is noticed, such as a raccoon digging in trash or pigeons landing on a food establishment. These pests are typically considered a nuisance and should be eliminated quickly. Clutter provides hiding places and breeding grounds for pests, so clean up frequently. Caulk cracks and crevices to stop pests from entering the premises.

Eradication

Eradication differs from control in that eradication is intended to be permanent. Eradication requires an ongoing effort at local, community, national, and international levels. A variety of tactics are needed to achieve eradication, including surveillance, prevention and treatment. Successful eradication depends on the ability to identify persons who may have been exposed, determine whether infection has occurred, and stop transmission before it occurs again.

A key to success is denying pests the things they need to grow or reproduce. Denying them food, shelter or water can reduce or prevent them from reaching damaging populations. For example, mulching around sun-loving plants deprives weed seeds of the sunlight they need for germination. Locating plants where they will receive full sun rather than shady or partial shade helps the leaves dry quickly, depriving fungal organisms that cause leaf diseases of the moisture they need to infect the foliage.

Biological controls, such as predators, parasitoids and pathogens, are often used to reduce the need for toxic chemicals. However, natural enemies are vulnerable to the same pesticides that destroy them. Often, there is a time lag between a pest population increase and the arrival of its natural enemies. Releasing more of a pest’s enemies into an area, either in small repeated batches or in a single large release, can augment existing natural enemy populations and provide long-term control.

Homeowners can use thresholds to decide if pest damage is acceptable. This requires monitoring and recording pest counts, then deciding when it is necessary to take action. Because many pests produce several generations a year, homeowners must continually determine if the number of pests has reached damaging levels.

A good rule of thumb for determining when to use a pesticide is when the cost of controlling the pest outweighs the benefits of not controlling it. This includes calculating the cost of future infections or vaccinations and discounting them, as well as the social benefit from eradicating the pest. For example, adding boron (an EPA-registered pesticide) to cellulose insulation can mechanically kill self-grooming pests and provides an additional benefit of improved thermal and acoustic insulation.