Ensure you have the right licensing and insurance for your pest control business. Your local government can help you determine what requirements apply in your area.
Regular pest control helps prevent property damage and maintain the value of your home. It also reduces the risk of disease-causing pathogens and allergens. Contact Pest Control Simi Valley CA now!
New homeowners face a lot to learn about their home and property, especially when it comes to pest control. The first step in any successful pest control program is to identify the problem. This can be as simple as knowing what the pest looks like, but it also involves understanding the pest’s life cycle and behavior. This can help you determine why the pest is there in the first place and how it got there (for example, a dog carrying fleas from a neighbor or an overgrown garden providing a hiding place for weeds).
Pests can be intimidating and frightening to humans, like spiders, earwigs and silverfish. They can bite or sting, as do cockroaches, ants and house centipedes. Some contaminate food, as do mites and ticks. Others cause damage to homes, gardens and personal items, as do termites, rodents and bed bugs. Others stain or tarnish surfaces, as do clothes moths, pine seed bugs and boxelder bugs.
Some of these pests are migratory and can be carried into the home by people or pets, such as mosquitoes, bees and hornets. Some may be disease vectors, as are fleas and certain types of spiders. Others may destroy crops and ornamentals, as do wood-destroying bees and aphids.
Many pest problems can be controlled without the use of pesticides, especially when the correct preventive steps are taken. Keep debris away from the home, including piles of firewood and stacks of leaves or garbage. Store food in sealed containers, and close off places where pests can hide, such as cracks around doors or window frames and clogged gutters. Seal vents and ductwork, and repair screens on windows and doors. Keep garbage cans tightly closed and dispose of regularly. Store pet food and water indoors, and clean litter pans regularly.
If pesticides are used, make sure a licensed applicator is using them and that they are following proper safety guidelines. Read pesticide labels carefully to understand how they should be mixed, applied and stored.
Verify that an applicator has a pesticide license by calling the State Department of Agriculture. Also ask to see proof of insurance and a copy of the pesticide label for each application site.
Pest Control Strategy
A pest control strategy is a plan for managing pests in an open environment or indoor structure. It is a combination of methods and tactics, including monitoring, scouting, trapping, physical or mechanical controls, cultural practices, biological control, and pesticides. In general, strategies are designed to cause minimal harm to people, property, plants and animals. Pest control goals include prevention, suppression and, in rare situations, eradication. Preventing and controlling are common goals in outdoor situations; eradication is more difficult to accomplish in enclosed areas such as dwellings, schools, office buildings, health care, food processing and storage, and greenhouses.
The first step in any pest management program is to monitor pest numbers and damage. This involves observing the situation regularly, recording observations, and taking action when conditions are favorable for pest development. Monitoring can include scouting, trapping, and sampling to measure pest populations. It also can involve spotting and counting weeds, insects, mollusks, or vertebrates. Monitoring often includes checking environmental factors such as temperature, moisture levels, and soil nutrients to determine if they are conducive to pest growth.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests and their damage using a variety of techniques including habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties. Pesticides are used only after monitoring indicates that they are needed according to established guidelines, and they are applied with the goal of causing minimum harm to humans, beneficial organisms, livestock, pets, wildlife, and the environment.
Biological control is the use of natural enemies such as parasites, predators, and pathogens to reduce pest populations without harming the plant or other organism that is being protected. It may be supplemented by introducing more of a pest’s enemies or by releasing enemies that were not previously present in an area. This approach is not always effective and can be hampered by a lag between the time when a pest population increases and the onset of control by enemy species.
Many chemical pesticides are used for the control of continuous and sporadic pests. These chemicals may be delivered by spraying, dipping, dusting or fumigating. It is important to consider the evolutionary consequences of any pesticide management strategy that seems likely to decrease the occurrence or magnitude of resistance in target pest populations.
Pesticides
A pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, controlling, destroying, repelling, mitigating, or otherwise interfering with the growth of unwanted plants and/or animals. Pesticides are used in both agricultural and residential settings. They are regulated at the federal, state and local levels. Federally regulated pesticides are reviewed and approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before being sold or distributed in the United States. Most state governments have their own review and registration processes for pesticides as well.
There are many different types of pesticides, including insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, and plant growth regulators. Each type of pesticide has its own mode of action and target organisms, which determines how it is applied. There are also different delivery methods of pesticides, such as sprays, powders and baits.
Pesticides can cause harm to non-target species as well, which is why they are carefully chosen and applied. Ideally, pesticides should be lethal to the targeted pests while not damaging other species. However, the use of pesticides often disrupts ecosystems and can result in the death or injury of wild birds, beneficial insects, livestock, fish, pets, people, and other plants and animals.
As a result of these dangers, many states have laws and regulations to minimize the potential for adverse impacts from pesticides. These include requiring notification to affected residents, setting maximum residue limits (MRLs) for pesticides in food and water supplies, and providing buffer zones around schools, hospitals, homes and farms.
Another concern is the potential for pesticides to drift from their point of application. Air monitoring reveals that some chemicals can travel long distances and pollute the air in nearby communities or even on other farm fields. Some state agencies have developed maps to help farmers identify whether their crops may be at risk from drifting pesticides.
A final issue with pesticides is that some species of plants and insects can develop resistance to them, necessitating the use of new or alternative pest control measures. Regardless of the method of pest control, it is important to always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for applying a pesticide. This includes wearing protective clothing as suggested in the label and making sure that children, pets and other people are not in the area while the pesticide is being applied.
Biological Control
Biological control is the use of natural enemies (predators, parasitoids or pathogens) to reduce pest damage. The natural enemies are collected from the habitat of the target pest or its native ecosystem, screened for their ability to attack the pest, and then released in the appropriate environment. This approach has been gaining in popularity as resistance to insecticides and increased costs of chemical controls have become important factors.
Unlike pesticides, biological control agents do not eradicate the target pest; they usually maintain it at low population levels over long periods of time. Biological control also has the potential to work in conjunction with other management strategies such as resistant crop varieties, cultural techniques, physical barriers and semiochemicals.
The most widely used form of biological control is the classic or inoculative release of natural enemies. In this technique, small numbers of the natural enemy are collected from the country or region of origin of the target pest, ‘inoculated’ into the new environment and then released in sufficient quantity to achieve an effect similar to that of a chemical spray. Classical biological control is most effective against relatively sedentary pests that occur in island ecosystems with suitable climates.
More recently, researchers have developed a variety of manipulation techniques to increase the number or activity of natural enemies. These methods include habitat manipulation and seasonal inoculative releases, as well as more direct introductions of natural enemies. In one example, channels are dug in a saltmarsh to connect pools of water; this allows naturally-occurring predatory fish to move between the pools and feed on mosquito larvae.
Many of these manipulation techniques require extensive preliminary studies that are very similar to those required for the development of a pesticide. For example, a predatory mite species must be screened for its ability to predate and parasitize the target greenhouse whitefly and its native host plants before it can be approved for use as a biological control agent.
PPQ is committed to using safe and environmentally responsible biological controls as part of an integrated pest management strategy. Monitoring and evaluation are integral parts of all implementation projects involving biological control to ensure that the control objectives are being met.