Pest Control Westlake Village involves managing unwanted organisms that damage plants or animals. It can be done through exclusion, interception, physical removal, or chemical means.
Preventive measures include proper sanitation to minimize the spread of diseases, removing clutter that provides hiding places for pests, and planting crops resistant to disease. Scouting and monitoring help determine when pest populations reach threshold levels.
Preventative pest control focuses on eliminating pests before they invade, keeping infestations and their associated damage from getting out of hand. This approach to pest treatment usually requires regular inspections and treatments, but it can save money and stress over the long term.
Prevention can include many activities, from basic sanitation to keeping food establishments tightly closed, blocking off entry points, and maintaining a thorough record of pest activity. Eliminating food and water sources that attract pests can also help prevent them from spreading throughout a building. Adding extra layers of protection to boxes, packages, and other containers can also slow the spread of pests during transport.
Unchecked infestations can quickly spiral out of control, and the cost of eradicating pests once they have established a foothold can be prohibitive. Threshold levels have been set for many pests that require action, such as wood rot and rodent infestations, and these are often based on esthetic and health considerations.
Physical controls can include traps, barriers, screens and fences, sanitizers, radiation, electricity and other methods that alter the environment of a pest. Biological controls can also be used, including parasites and predators, which are natural organisms that live on or in a pest, as well as pheromones that interfere with insect development.
Chemical controls include pesticides, which are substances that destroy or alter pests or their habitat. They may also repel or attract pests, and they can be either toxic or non-toxic, depending on the intended effect. Some examples of pesticides are herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.
Pests usually have specific targets that they prefer, such as a certain kind of plant or a particular kind of animal. By understanding what they prefer, a pest control program can be designed to attack them at these preferred targets.
A preventative pest control program will generally use fewer pesticides than reactive treatments. The use of fewer chemicals is better for the environment, and less harmful to people as well. It is important to understand how pesticides work, and to follow label instructions and safety warnings when using them.
Suppression
Suppression is the first step in pest control and involves restricting pest activity or inhibiting population growth. Control methods might include physical barriers (netting over small fruits, screens in greenhouses, and mulch to prevent insect, mollusk, and vertebrate pests) or chemical controls such as insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Cultural practices, such as frequent cleaning of hoophouses and equipment to deprive pests of comfortable habitats, can also be used to prevent infestations.
Monitoring of insect, mollusk, and weed pests can help determine if action thresholds have been reached or if the pest populations are increasing at unacceptable rates. These thresholds can be based on esthetic, economic, or health considerations. Monitoring can be done by trapping or scouting the infested area.
Many natural enemies, such as parasitoids and predators, are commercially available. They can be released in a controlled manner to suppress the pest population. This type of control is called augmentation, and it works well in greenhouses and interiorscapes. However, outdoor releases are complicated by unpredictable environmental conditions and the fact that different natural enemies attack a pest at different points in its life cycle.
Research has shown that multiple natural enemies can reduce the pest population more effectively than any one species alone. Taking this knowledge into account when designing augmentation programs can improve biological control outcomes. For example, a field exclusion experiment in oilseed rape showed that parasitoids and ground-dwelling predators acted in a complementary manner to suppress pollen beetle numbers, suggesting that the interaction between specialist and generalist enemies can contribute to the flow and stability of biological control services in agricultural landscapes.
Eradication is the last option for controlling pests and includes methods such as picking or spraying to eliminate a population. These methods are most effective at a small scale and require rigorous application of preventive measures to keep the pests from returning once the population has been eradicated.
Personal safety is a critical factor in all pest control efforts. When using any product, always follow the product label instructions and use the appropriate PPE, such as face masks, gloves, long sleeves, close-toe shoes, and eye protection.
Eradication
In outdoor pest situations, eradication is usually not an achievable goal, especially for introduced species that have become well-adapted to the new environment. Instead, prevention and suppression are the goals. However, eradication can be possible in indoor environments where the pest is unwanted (e.g., in fruit trees and lawns).
Biological control uses a pest’s natural enemies — predators, parasitoids, or pathogens — to keep populations low. This approach can be augmented by importing new enemies from the pest’s region of origin, or by releasing locally-adapted enemies such as the bacterium Bt israelensis that kills caterpillars and other Lepidopterans, or the mite Phytoseiulus thuringiensis that reduces aphid population on citrus plants.
Cultural practices can discourage pests by changing the environment in which they live. These can include intercropping crops that make it difficult for the pest to find a food source, planting trap crops that lure the pest away from the harvest crop, or reducing the time between plant establishment and flowering to decrease the chance of pest damage.
Chemical controls are often used as a last resort when other methods fail or when the benefits of controlling the pest outweigh any negative environmental impacts. These chemicals can include herbicides that kill weeds, insecticides that kill insects or other organisms, and fungicides that control diseases. Chemicals must be selected carefully to ensure that they will work on the target pest and that they will not impact non-target organisms. Chemicals also have the potential to be carried into waterways by runoff and to have other unintended consequences.
A healthy ecosystem supports many species and is less likely to suffer a damaging pest outbreak. Using thresholds to guide pest management decisions helps maintain this balance. Although some gardeners and growers may be disappointed to see a beautiful plant suffer from a pest problem, recognizing that the beauty of a garden is more than just the health and appearance of the plants can help homeowners accept that there is a level of damage that is acceptable. The use of thresholds can also help homeowners avoid excessive chemical usage.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
IPM is an environmentally friendly approach to pest control that relies on a combination of preventive tactics and selective use of non-chemical controls. The key to IPM is monitoring and identifying pests on a regular basis. This information allows for action thresholds to be set so that pesticides are only used when they are needed. This process reduces the risks to human health, beneficial organisms and the environment.
Before pesticides are used, an IPM plan will evaluate all of the options for preventing and controlling the problem. This includes physical manipulation of the growing area, cultural practices and modifications to plant varieties. When these options are deemed to be insufficient, more rigorous pest control methods are employed. This includes the use of sterile insect technology (releasing sterile insects that cannot breed with wild fertile males), trapping, weeding and the application of highly targeted chemical treatments.
It is important to find a pest control company that is experienced in the practice of IPM, as it will help you avoid unnecessary chemical applications. Ask friends and neighbors for recommendations, or contact local universities and agricultural departments. It is also a good idea to contact several companies for bids, before making a decision.
The Structural Pest Control Act [225 ILCS 235], Section 10.2, requires that public schools and licensed day care centers, when economically feasible, develop and implement an IPM program. This program must include training on pest management alternatives for staff, designating a “IPM Coordinator” and keeping a written IPM plan at the facility.
The Federal Integrated Pest Management Coordinating Committee (FIPMCC) provides leadership on IPM and is managed by the Office of Pest Management Policy (OPMP). The FIPMCC is comprised of representatives from USDA agencies involved in research, development, or education of IPM, as well as non-federal private-sector individuals and organizations. The FIPMCC also works closely with the USDA-funded Regional Integrated Pest Management Centers(link is external) throughout the United States to gather and disseminate IPM information in their areas of responsibility. For more information, click here to view the most recent National Road Map for Integrated Pest Management.