What are Some Pest Control Methods?

Pest constitutes a serious threat to many living things be it plants, human beings, and animals. Pest is one of the leading causes of high economic importance in agriculture. Pests are known to have a detrimental effect on crops and yield.

There are various kinds of pests including weed, fungus, flies, fleas, termites, and any living organism that harms the human. And also there are many different kinds of solutions to deal with the pest. A pest problem can be lower or at least can be reduced by conserving good hygiene.

In agriculture, there are four types of pest control methods described. Firstly let us discuss the type of pest. In agriculture, primarily two types of pest defined known as

Micro pest:

Micro pests as the name described small in size and hard to notice. Their example is aphids, worms, etc.

Macro pest:

Macro pests are relatively very large and very easy to become into consideration. Good examples of these pests are rodents.

There are four vital methods of pest control in agriculture. Usually, the selection of these methods depends on the size of the pest.

• Physical method
• Biological method
• Cultural method
• Chemical method

Physical method

This method is very efficacious to treat the macro pest. It is a nonchemical pest control method also known as a mechanical method that demands physical detection of pests and uses different mechanisms to evict them.

This is a very successful technique when it comes to rodents like rats, rabbits, and grass cutters. And also this is a very moderate technique to use.

It uses a wide range of mechanisms including chicken wire, shade cloth, a man-made option like combative technique, physical objects (variety of traps, alarms, and sound, sticky tapes, and caricature), and other scary approaches to get rid of pests. This procedure causes no harm to plants or human beings.

Biological method

The biological method is the most technical, it employs other organisms to control the pest. For example use of chicken to control grasshopper.

1. Fern leaf yarrow is an herbaceous perennial flower and works great for vegetable gardens.  
2. Using the predatory insects like parasite wasp, episodes spp (hoverflies) to end the insects which are harmful to plants growth.
3. Use of crops such as French marigolds, American marigolds cultivar single gold. These crops repel the roots by vacating roots.
4. Use of antagonists (Antagonists are microbes that vaccinate to the surface of the plant through various methods. These can apply as a soil drench or foliar spray to treat pests like bees. Antagonists are of many types Aizawa strain of Bacillus thuringiensis (BT).
5. Use of Bacillus subtilis a bacterium found in soil to handle powdery mildew.

This method goes to uplift due to the rise of the use of natural products. But this method needs extra care as it could harm plants if goes wrong.

Cultural method

This routine also includes the natural way of treating pest tension. The cultural method comprises methodologies or technique that raises adverse effect on pests. This is also the ancient way of treating pests. This method is also suggested by the horticulturist as crucial to halting plant diseases.

This method is applied before and after planting the seed into the soil. Some of the important techniques of this method are soil fertility management, crop rotation, plant species selection, pruning methods, companion planting, sanitation, and weeding.

Use of these methods could vary with the type of soil, and weather. You can also use fertilized soil now to grow with keeping pests at bay.

Rouging is also one of the paramount techniques used in the cultural method. Term rouging can be defined as a way of removal of dead, diseased, and infested plants from the planting area. This method also includes land preparation. And this is one of the easiest methods to use.

Chemical method

This mechanism includes chemicals to treat pests, chemicals are solutions manufactured by toxic and very poisonous compounds. The chemical method is considered as the last method when treating pests Chemical method principally uses to end micro pests like aphids, thrips, etc. These used chemicals are generally known as pesticides or insecticides.

The disadvantage of this method is chemicals spray on plants can retain on them and can be dangerous for consumer health. Moreover, it can be dangerous for the gardener who is using these chemical compounds. They are usually used by mixing with water at recommend rate before spraying.

The pest control mechanism is necessary to use to control the pest. But there are many ways to treat them. Make sure to use the method which is least harmful to your health and your plant health. Keep in mind the pest control method should in favor of your health.