Definition: A pest is an organism which is detrimental to humans or human concerns.
The term pest may be used to refer specifically to harmful animals but is also often taken to mean all kind of insect, plant disease, or weed that can hurt your plant and it’s health. Insects, plant diseases, and weeds that are not harmful to your crops are not considered pests. Some times if the pest are not found in sufficiently large quantity to damage your plants, it is not a pest. There are many kinds of pest that can hurt your plant as they grow. Pesticides are chemicals and other agents (e.g. beneficial micro-organisms) that are used to control or protect other organisms from pests.
While some insects feed on crops, others feed exclusively on other insects which makes them the enemies of our enemies and thus, our friends. Even in a monoculture system, there are interactions between pest animals, their environment and people. Pests are creatures which interfere with our activities in any way, shape or form. In agricultural settings, insects cause damage in a variety of ways. The most common are the direct or indirect consumption of our goods such as a corn earworm or corn borer feeding on corn. There’s also the transmission of disease to livestock, plants and people. Some such as bed bugs feed on us directly and others like cockroaches share our dwellings and offend our sense of cleanliness. Others such as wasps or yellow jackets will inject us with harmful substances. Some like mosquitoes or aphids transmit diseases to us or our plants.
There are three very broad categories of pests which overlap: Medical or veterinary, urban and agricultural. Veterinary or medical and agricultural pests are fairly self explanatory; respectively they are insects which harm livestock and humans while agricultural pests harm crops. Urban pests are generally pests which infest our dwellings, although as I mentioned earlier there’s quite a bit of overlap between the categories.
Bear in mind, though, that there’s a lot of overlap between all of these categories. Whether an insect is a pest or whether
it’s beneficial will depend solely on where it currently is, what it’s feeding on and what it’s interacting with. Let’s use the example of the common insect family Meloidae as an example of how the term ‘pest’ and ‘natural enemy’ can almost paradoxically overlap. Some Meloid beetle larvae feed on grasshopper egg cases, which helps keep grasshopper populations down and reduces the amount of alfalfa lost through grasshopper damage. You’d think they’re a good thing to have around and in some ways they are.
Ladybird beetles are another great example where this paradox comes into play. Ladybird beetles are prized in 
most agricultural situations because they consume aphids, which suck plants dry and transmit disease. They’re not prized in vineyards because they, too, secrete their own defensive compound in the form of bitter tasting alkaloids. They won’t kill you but even a small amount of ladybug can ruin very expensive wine by making it taste bad, which is known in the industry as Ladybug Taint. They can also be urban pests, as anyone who lives in areas where asian ladybird beetles can be found. At the end of the growing season when food is scarce, the beetles look for places to overwinter. The best places are small cracks that allow high densities of ladybird beetles to congregate. Unfortunately for homeowners, they tend to find their way inside dwellings and become annoying uninvited houseguests.
What is IPM?
IPM (Integrated Pest Management) is a plan of what you will do when pests invade your crops. IPM uses pest control methods that are altogether the easiest, least costly, and least damaging to your land and the air we breathe. It takes an economical approach to pest management by sampling pests, looking at how they damage crops and what numbers of a pest are sufficient to damage a set of crops. This is much better than randomly spraying pesticides at anything which looks like it might be eating your crops because it takes into account how much money you’ll spend and save on treatments. It also encourages a conservative use of pesticides which not only lessens a pest’s exposure to pesticides and selection pressure for pesticide resistance but also lowers the amount of pesticides sprayed in the field.
Some common examples of pests are:
- ants
- aphids
- bed bugs
- mosquitoes
- cabbage white butterfly
- cockroaches
- houseflies
- Woodboring beetle
- Gypsy Moth
Similar Posts:
- Basics of organic gardening
- Prepare Your Garden for Vegetable Planting
- How To Get Rid Of Ants In Garden Beds
- 6 Steps to Planting a Successful Vegetable Garden
- How to grow your own vegitables
2 Comments
Many homeowners choose to manage pest control on their own. This process often includes a combination of strategies designed to make the space less desirable to roaches, bed bugs and other types of pests. Along with keeping the home clean and thus minimizing the potential for providing food for pests such as rats or mice, homeowners will often make use of over the counter products to kill any invaders into the living space. Along with commercial products, some people prefer to use time-honored methods of preparing anti-pest compounds using natural ingredients.
It is not unusual for homeowners, businesses, and municipalities to employ the services of a pest control service. Along with dealing with the usual pests that may seek food and shelter within the building, professional exterminators can also address the presence of pests that could cause serious structural damage to the property. For example, a pest control service is highly likely to deal with termites and ants that can infest the building and the surrounding landscape of the property and ultimately cost the property owner a great deal of money in repairs and replacement of buildings.
Integrated Pest Management is a process involving common sense and sound solutions for treating and controlling pests. These solutions incorporate three basic steps: 1) inspection, 2) identification and 3) treatment. Treatment options vary from sealing cracks and removing food and water sources to pesticide treatments when necessary.
Navigate inside and outside of this interactive home to learn how you and your pest professional can implement an IPM program throughout your own home. IPM, as a partnership between homeowner and pest professional, can help protect your family against pest-associated health, property and quality of life threats.