Abbotsford Pest Control uses non-toxic methods, such as planting certain plants to repel insects or using a physical barrier to prevent them from entering your garden or home. It also includes removing food sources, repairing leaky water faucets, and regular garbage removal.
Biological pest control harnesses nature’s predatory insects and parasitic nematodes to kill unwanted organisms. This can be as simple as releasing ladybugs to eat aphids or as complex as microbe-engineered solutions.
Pests are a serious nuisance that can cause structural damage, health risks and food contamination. Preventive pest control takes a proactive approach to deny pests access to commercial facilities, eliminating conditions that lead to their presence. It involves identifying and addressing entry points, sealing cracks and gaps, and keeping sanitation and maintenance standards high. Taking the time to implement these preventive measures eliminates the need for treatment once an infestation has occurred.
Termite infestations, for example, wreak havoc on wood structures, leading to damage and compromising their integrity. Cockroaches and rodents carry a variety of diseases, such as Salmonella and Cholera, and can cause asthma attacks and skin allergies in humans. Pests can also be a source of noise pollution and chew through electrical wires, which can lead to fires and other hazardous situations.
Preventive treatments include the use of bait stations, fly traps and other traps, and fumigation. These are generally less toxic than the chemical pesticides used in eradication, as they do not leave behind poisoned carcasses that can attract secondary pests and present a health risk to employees and consumers. These preventive methods also require a lower level of ongoing monitoring and inspection, thus reducing the need for pesticides in general.
A pest management plan that includes both preventive and eradication techniques is often referred to as Integrated Pest Management. It is important to remember that while the primary goal of any pest control program is to reduce the number of pests to an acceptable level, avoiding pest infestation in the first place is more cost effective than controlling the problem once it occurs.
An established pest prevention program can save facility, property and QA managers significant costs and headaches in the long run. It can also prevent costly product recalls and lost business, as well as the damage to reputation that a negative pest-related incident can cause. Developing such a program requires significant time, effort and resources, but can help to substantially reduce a company’s overall pest exposure and associated liability. This can be particularly true for companies that sell products in a highly competitive marketplace.
Suppression
Pests are organisms that cause damage in a manner that is unacceptable to humans. This damage can include physical contamination of foods (rodent droppings, insect parts and other foreign materials), biological contamination (microbial pathogens that are carried on the pest’s bodies or wings) and direct damage to facilities, food products or their packaging. Pests may also be vectors of disease (such as rodents and birds). Pest control is a necessary part of hygiene management in food manufacturing environments.
There are many different methods of pest control. It is important that the right method is chosen for the situation. Some types of pests are more difficult to control than others, and the choice of a particular control measure must be made with regard to the impact it will have on production operations. It is also possible that a combination of pest control measures may be required to achieve the desired result.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is an approach to pest control that takes into account both the economic and environmental impacts of the control action taken. It starts with a detailed identification of the pests infesting a facility, then determines the best control method or methods to use. The IPM program will take into account the effect that the control method selected will have on the wider environment and the habitat where the pests live, and will also consider any health issues caused by the use of the control method.
A common way of controlling pests is to use chemical sprays, baits and traps. It is important that these chemicals are used with care and that they are only used in areas where people will not be present. They can contaminate food and water sources, and they can make asthma and allergies worse.
Other methods of pest control are based on the use of natural substances, such as nematodes and predatory insects that eat pests. These natural controls can help to keep the number of pests in a facility down, without damaging other living things or the environment.
When the right method is chosen to control pests, it must be followed consistently. This will ensure that the pest population does not grow back to unacceptable levels, causing further harm.
Eradication
The goal of eradication is to completely eliminate a pest from an area or geographic region. It is a very difficult objective to achieve. The elimination process must be followed by certification of the absence of a pest, which can only occur after independent and respected parties verify that no pests remain.
Eradication is often referred to as “pulling the weed by its roots.” The word comes from the Latin term eradicare, which means “to pull up” or “to eradicate.” In terms of pest control, it is important to correctly identify the pest and determine its impact on human activities, as well as the natural environment. Then, an appropriate control strategy can be developed.
In outdoor pest situations, eradication is rarely the goal and usually the focus is on prevention and suppression. But in indoor areas – such as dwellings, schools, and office buildings; health care, food production, or food preparation facilities; and greenhouses — it is the preferred approach. In these enclosed environments, a pest can be a serious problem that must be controlled.
Eradicating a pest involves reducing or eliminating the population to such a low level that it can no longer cause economic injury (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2005). This is accomplished by using preventive and corrective actions to manage an infested area, including sanitation, habitat modification, and crop protection. The use of biological controls also helps to keep pest populations under control.
Biological control involves the introduction of organisms that naturally occur in a host crop to suppress pests through predation, parasitism, or herbivory. These organisms can be bred and released in small batches or in a single large release. Occasionally, chemical or non-chemical methods are used in combination with the biological method to achieve better control.
One example is the insertion of Boron into cellulose insulation, which acts as a mechanical pesticide that kills self-grooming ants and other pests that crawl through the insulation to reach the attic. This practice is regulated by the EPA and can only be performed by pest management professionals as part of an integrated pest management program.
Monitoring
Monitoring is the process of identifying pests and their damage to crops or other plants in order to determine when control measures are needed. Effective monitoring relies on a combination of methods, including scouting (observing pests in the field), collecting and counting samples, and using information collected from previous years to identify patterns in pest populations. Monitoring is an important part of integrated pest management (IPM), which is a process of managing a crop or lawn using tactics that are effective, cost-efficient and safe for the environment.
Monitoring methods are largely dependent on the type of pest being monitored, but can include sticky traps, visual observation, and the use of pheromones. The latter involves attracting pests to a trap or other container where they can be counted or identified. Pheromones can also be used to disrupt mating, reducing the population of some pests.
The most effective pest control measures are those that target a specific pest species, and are used at the appropriate time of year in a particular location or climate. This is why IPM programs rely on pest identification and monitoring to determine when and how to apply control methods.
When pests are spotted in a field, they can be monitored and identified with the help of a variety of tools, including a phenology calendar, which correlates a pest’s behavior and development with seasonal changes in the environment. The resulting information helps growers and PCOs decide whether to treat the field or wait for the pest to reach an economic threshold.
If monitoring, identification, and action thresholds indicate that treatment is required, less risky pest control methods are first considered. These may include the use of highly targeted chemicals, such as pheromones, to disrupt pest mating or biological controls like parasitoids and pathogens, which suppress or eliminate pests without damaging the plants they infest. Broadcast spraying of non-targeted pesticides is usually a last resort.
Using remote monitoring technology to capture real-time images of phototactic insects reduces the time and labor involved in observing, capturing, and analyzing individual pests. For example, a system developed by researchers at Shihezi University can capture images of rodents within minutes after the device is triggered. The images can be automatically processed and analyzed with the aid of a deep learning algorithm, allowing for rapid pest identification.