Controlling Insects: Best Practices
As far as insect control is concerned, most pest control professionals attribute the management and control of insects to the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy.
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One of the key components of IPM is the use of certain organisms, often referred to as natural enemies or biological control agents, to control insects. Biological control is when a living organism, such as a plant, animal or other natural enemy, can suppress a pest population, making it less harmful than it would otherwise be. Once pests come under biological control, population density declines because the host of a particular natural "enemy" cannot hunt or reproduce. Stagnation in insect and management leads to new pest problems that prevent a better understanding of ecology, improve the ability of plants and animals to control pests, and build up IPM populations of beneficial insects.
For more information on how to control insects without the use of harsh chemicals, refer to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institute of Food Safety and Health (NIAH).
Biological control can be used against a wide range of insects, including pests such as worms, mites, spiders, and other insects. The methods and active substances used differ depending on the type of pest and its impact on the environment.
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Managing yard insects with Pesticides
For example, entomopathic nematodes can be used to control insects that feed on grass, and there are many different species. Insecticides such as insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides (resistant pesticides) can all be used to kill certain insects or a class of insects.
Large insects such as destructive caterpillars can be controlled by simply picking them by hand from the plant. For example, you only need a few ladybirds and their larvae on a plant to fight the aphid invasion.
To minimize the potential harm to beneficial insects, limit your spraying to a small area where you can see the pests lurking, and leave a few unsprayed havens for the good bugs that are not visible. Find a safe way to prevent the insects that have invaded your home and the spraying of the beetles.
When monitoring populations, insect traps can help determine when insects appear, how many there are, and what to do about a particular pest, which is usually done by trapping.
This strategy uses specially introduced predatory or parasitic insects to control insect populations that actively damage plants. The most common method of protecting plants from insect pests such as aphids, mites and other pests is cutting. The insects are attracted by the traps on the crop, which are then destroyed.
Failure to eradicate the primary insect can sometimes lead to other types of pests being controlled by the insecticide in question. This same failure can also be caused by the choice of the wrong pesticide, the wrong identification of the pest, the wrong application of the pesticide, or the wrong dosage. If a pest is not correctly detected or the "wrong" pesticide is chosen, the use of pesticides may not bring the insects under control.
Monitoring pesticide toxicity
If a pesticide is deemed necessary to control an insect problem, the best course of action is to use the least toxic pesticide that effectively performs this task. In situations where we want to promote biological control, the use of non-persistent pesticides can provide better long-term control over insects, as they do less harm to natural enemies that migrate after application. If a pesticide is needed to combat a pest outbreak, it should be used in a way consistent with the conservation of beneficial insects.
Biological control has very few disadvantages compared to chemicals and can control pests more effectively than the use of other organisms. Importantly, mechanical control is therefore an integrated approach to insect control and has many of the same benefits of biological control, such as the use of natural enemies and the preservation of beneficial insects.
Using insects to control insects means that no synthetic chemicals need be used, that virtually no human work is involved in the spread of useful bugs, and that it is generally a great process. Biological control can be difficult to release into the garden because you have no control over where the insects go.
While pollinators in the garden are great, there is nothing that can take the sting out of an insect. Even the pesticides approved for organic production are insecticides, and although most botanical insecticides must be consumed by the insects themselves, they are primarily harmful to the pests and do little harm to beneficial insects. The advantage of the spray method for control is that the beneficial insect has a population in the garden and has a lot of work to do. While pollinators behave and behave in our gardens, we are talking here about beneficial insects often being the same pesticides used to control pests and insects, not the other way around.
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