KADUNA POLYTECHNIC, KADUNA

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED PHYSICS

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT
ON

COURSE TITLE: PEST AND PEST CONTORL

COURSE CODE: STB 211

ND 2 B
QUESTIONS:
WRITE A SHORT NOTE ON THE FOLLOWING METHODS OF
A. CONTROLLING PEST
B. BIOLOGICAL CONTROL
C. CULTURAL CONTROL
D. MECHANICAL AND PHYSICAL CONTROL
E. CHEMICAL CONTROL
F. ADVANCED METHOD OF CONTROLLING PEST
G. BIORATIONAL PRODUCTS, INSECT GROWTH REGULATIONS (IGRS)
H. CRISPTER TECHNOLOGY TO CONTROLLING PEST,
I. SECOND GENERATION GREEN PRODUCT

BY

GROUP MEMBER
1. SAMSON PETER CST22ND2274
2. SALIHU ABDULRAHEEM ADEIZA CST22ND0324
3. SALEH RAHMAT BALA CST22ND0338
4. SALMA ISMAIL CST22ND2205
5. SALIHU NAFISA ABDULLAHI CST22ND0379

TO BE SUBMITTED TO MRS. ZEENAH AHMED

 INTRODUCTION

There are several general approaches to insect pest management. When developing an
overall pest management strategy it is helpful to consider all of the available options.
Most specific insect control methods can be classified into the following major
categories: cultural control, host resistance, physical control, mechanical control,
biological control, and chemical control. Not all are appropriate or useful in the home
garden.

1. Biological Control: This method uses natural predators, parasites, or pathogens to

control pest populations. For example, ladybugs can help manage aphids in
gardens. Biological control is environmentally friendly and helps maintain
biodiversity.
2. Cultural Control: Cultural methods involve altering agricultural practices to
reduce pest habitats and food sources. Techniques include crop rotation, adjusting
planting times, and soil management. These practices disrupt pest life cycles and
reduce pest populations.
3. Mechanical and Physical Control: These methods use physical barriers, traps, or
hand-picking to manage pests. Examples include installing fences, using nets, and
manually removing pests. These methods are labor-intensive but can be highly
effective in small-scale settings.
4. Chemical Control: This method involves the application of pesticides to kill or
repel pests. Chemical control can be highly effective but may pose risks to human
health, beneficial organisms, and the environment if not used responsibly.
5. Advanced Methods of Controlling Pest: These include modern technologies
such as pheromone traps, electronic pest control devices, and other precision
agriculture techniques, like drones and sensors, to detect and treat pest infestations
with minimal environmental impact.
6. Biorational Products: Biorational products are low-toxicity pesticides derived
from natural sources. Examples include microbial pesticides and plant-based
 compounds. They are selective, targeting specific pests while minimizing harm to
beneficial organisms.
7. Insect Growth Regulators (IGRs): IGRs disrupt the normal development and
reproduction of insects, targeting their growth processes rather than killing them
outright. These regulators are species-specific and have minimal impact on non-
target species.
8. CRISPR Technology in Pest Control: CRISPR is a gene-editing tool that can be
used to modify the DNA of pests, potentially reducing their ability to reproduce or
survive. This technology is still in its early stages but holds promise for precise
and lasting pest control.
9. Second-Generation Green Products: These are eco-friendly pest control
products designed to be even safer for the environment and non-target organisms
than earlier "green" products. They often incorporate new active ingredients or
delivery methods to improve safety and efficacy.

Each method has its advantages and limitations, and integrated pest management (IPM)
approaches often combine several methods to achieve effective, sustainable pest control.

PREMABLE

Cultural Control

These methods involve modification of standard farming or gardening practices to avoid

pests or to make the environment less favorable for them. There are several types of
cultural controls; the following are a few examples of commonly used methods.
Crop rotation replaces a crop that is susceptible to a serious pest with another crop that
is not susceptible, on a rotating basis. For example, corn rootworm larvae can be starved
out by following corn with one to two years of a non-host crop such as soybeans, alfalfa,
oats, or other crops. Crop rotation works best in larger areas where the insects can not
readily move from the old crop location to the new, therefore, this technique has limited
applicability to garden insect pests. Sanitation refers to keeping the area clean of plants
or materials that may harbor pests. Examples include removal of weeds in greenhouses
that may harbor mites, aphids, or whiteflies; destruction of crop residues such as corn
stubble, squash vines, or fallen apples that may be overwintering sites for pests; cleaning
of equipment that can spread pests from one area to another. Trap cropping is the
provision of a pest insect’s preferred food near the crop to be protected; the insects are
attracted to the trap crop which is then destroyed. For example, pickleworms will
concentrate in squash planted near cucumbers, and the squash plants can be destroyed. A
carefully considered time of planting will help avoid some pest problems such as seed
corn maggot.
Host Resistance

Host resistance, or plant resistance, has been used effectively for decades to reduce the
impact of pests. Some plants have physical and chemical adaptations that allow them to
repel, tolerate, or even kill pests. Plant breeders attempt to use these characteristics and
even improve them to develop crops that are resistant. Many varieties of important crops
grown today, such as wheat, rice, alfalfa, corn, and apples are resistant to one or more
pests. Historically, the development of resistant varieties was often tedious and lengthy,
requiring many generations of plant hybridization. Although such traditional techniques
will continue, it is likely that modern methods of biotechnology will also provide pest-
resistant crops.

Physical Controls

These are methods that physically keep insect pests from reaching their hosts. Barriers
include window screens for keeping health and nuisance pests out of buildings and plant
pests out of greenhouses, floating row covers for many horticultural crops, and plant
collars to keep cutworms from attacking plants such as tomatoes. Various types of traps
can be used for monitoring and/or control, such as glueboard traps in homes or red sphere
traps for apple maggots. Codling moth larvae can be trapped under cardboard bands
wrapped around apple trees; the bands are removed and destroyed. Some pests, such as
earwigs and slugs, can be lured to their death in sunken traps filled with beer. In some
cases, chemical lures (containing pheromones or other chemical attractants) are available
to increase trap effectiveness. Trapping must be evaluated for each pest situation. In some
cases, traps can lead to increased damage, such as pheromone-baited traps for Japanese
beetles.

Various types of traps can be used for specific insects.

Mechanical Control

Mechanical control methods directly remove or kill pests. They can be rapid and
effective, and many are well suited for small acute pest problems, and are popular with
gardeners and homeowners. Importantly, mechanical controls have relatively little impact
on the beneficial natural enemies of pests and other non-target organisms, and are
therefore well suited for use with biological control in an integrated pest management
approach (see below).
Large insects, such as this Colorado potato beetle, can be hand-picked from plants. Photo
by USDA-ARS.

Hand-picking can be used for large or brightly colored foliage feeders such as Colorado
potato beetle, Mexican bean beetle, and tomato hornworm. Some insects will defensively
drop from plants if disturbed, and can be knocked into a container of soapy water.
Shaking plants will dislodge many pests. For example, plum curculio beetles can be
removed from fruit trees by diligently banging tree limbs with a padded stick and
collecting the adult weevils on a white sheet as they fall out of the trees. A strong spray
of water will dislodge aphids and mites from greenhouse, garden, and house plants. Fly
swatters and mouse traps are forms of mechanical control. Cultivation or tillage exposes
many soil insects to desiccation or predation by birds.

Biological Control

This is the use of beneficial organisms to control pests. Many centuries ago, Chinese
farmers observed that ants were helping to control insect pests in their citrus orchards by
feeding on caterpillars, beetles, and leaf-feeding bugs. The farmers discovered that by
collecting the papery nests of a specific type of ant from trees in the countryside and
moving them into their orchards, they got better control of some pests. They also
provided aerial bamboo runways among the citrus trees to help the ants move easily from
tree to tree. These efforts to increase the numbers of ants in the orchard and to heighten
their efficiency as predators is the first recorded occurrence of biological control of
insects, which is the intentional manipulation of populations of living beneficial
organisms, called natural enemies, in order to reduce the numbers of pests or amount of
damage.

Vedalia beetle. Photo by USDA-ARS.

In the mid-1880s, southern California’s developing citrus industry experienced

devastating losses from an introduced pest, cottony cushion scale. Growers tried every
available chemical control known at the time, even fumigation with hydrogen cyanide,
but nothing provided sufficient control; many growers removed their citrus groves
because the damage was so serious. After determining that the scale insect was native to
Australia and New Zealand, the U.S.D.A. sent an entomologist to that area to look for
effective natural enemies. The entomologist found a small lady beetle, the vedalia beetle,
which he sent to California. It rapidly reproduced in infested citrus groves and brought
the cottony cushion scale under complete and lasting control. This was the first highly
successful case of controlling an alien pest by introducing its natural enemies from a
foreign land, a technique now known as classical biological control.
Agents of biological control (natural enemies) of insects include predators, parasitic
insects, and insect pathogens. Predators may be insects or other insectivorous animals,
each of which consumes many insect prey during its lifetime. Predators are often large,
active, and/or conspicuous in their behavior, and are therefore more readily recognized
than are parasites and pathogens.
Parasites lay their eggs in or on their host. Photo by USDA-ARS.

Parasites (also called parasitoids) of insects are other insects which lay their eggs in or on
the host insect. When the parasite egg hatches, the young parasite larva feeds on the host
(the pest) and kills it. Usually that one host is sufficient to feed the immature parasite
until it becomes an adult. Many parasites are very specific to the type of host insect they
can attack, and they are not harmful to humans. Although insect parasites are very
common, they are not well known because of their small size. One of the
smallest, Trichogramma, is only about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
Caterpillar killed by Bt (dark insect) and not infected (light insect).

Insects, like other animals, are subject to attack by disease organisms. Microbial control
is a form of biological control that uses insect pathogens to control pests. Insect
pathogens include viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and other microorganisms that
cause insect diseases. Disease epidemics among insects are not commonly encountered in
nature except when insect populations are very large or when environmental conditions
favor the growth of the disease organism. Nevertheless, insect pathogens are very
important in the constant suppression of pest populations. Also, certain insect pathogens
have been very successfully manipulated to achieve biological control of specific pests.
For example, different strains of the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis, commonly known
as “Bt”, are marketed to control many insects including various caterpillars such as
cabbage loopers and gypsy moth larvae, mosquitoes, and Colorado potato beetles. Many
insect pathogens attack only one species or a limited group of insects and therefore are
unlikely to harm non-target species such as beneficial insects, humans, livestock,
wildlife, or plants.
There are three broad approaches to biological control. Importation of natural enemies is
conducted by federal and state agencies to find better beneficial natural enemies and
permanently establish them into new areas. Conservation of natural enemies improves the
effectiveness of natural enemies through farming and gardening practices that provide
necessary resources for their survival and protect them from toxins and other adverse
conditions. Augmentation of natural enemies temporarily increases the numbers of
natural enemies through periodic releases, thereby increasing the overall numbers of
natural enemies and improving biological control.

Chemical Control

This involves the use of chemicals to kill pests or to inhibit their feeding, mating, or other
essential behaviors. The chemicals used in chemical control can be natural products,
synthesized mimics of natural products, or completely synthetic materials.
Repellants, confusants, and irritants are not usually toxic to insects, but interfere with
their normal behavior and thereby keep the insects from causing damage. Mothballs and
mosquito repellants are familiar examples. Widescale use of synthetic sex pheromones
may confuse insects sufficiently that they are unable to mate and produce offspring –
using insect pheromones in this manner is called mating disruption. This is one method
the WDNR has used to slow the spread of gypsy moth in Wisconsin, dropping
pheromone flakes from airplanes in order to treat large acreages. A few such products are
commercially available for other insects, such as for codling moth control in apples. This
practice works best in large commercial plantings where it is less likely that mated
females will move into the planting from outside of the treated area. Many of these types
of behavioral chemicals break down or wash away quickly, and must be reapplied
frequently, used in an enclosed area, or formulated to release slowly over a long period.
Insecticides and miticides include many types of commercially available toxins, some
naturally-derived, others synthesized, that are used for killing insects and mites.
Chemical controls, particularly synthetic organic insecticides, have been developed for
nearly every insect pest. They are widely used in industrialized nations for several
reasons: they are highly effective – one product often controls several different pests;
there is relatively low cost for product or labor; and generally their effects are predictable
and reliable. Chemical insecticides have allowed management of larger acreages by fewer
individuals because of the reduced labor needed for physical and mechanical controls.
Besides their use in agriculture, chemical insecticides have been very important in the
battle against disease-carrying insects, such as mosquitoes that carry malaria.
However, chemical controls have many disadvantages: most have biological activity
against many forms of life and therefore can affect non-target organisms; for the same
reason, they present various levels of hazard to humans, especially pesticide applicators
and other farm workers; most are highly toxic to beneficial insects, such as pollinators
and predatory and parasitic natural enemies; both target and non-target insects can
develop resistance to insecticides, sometimes very rapidly. Over-reliance on chemicals
and diminished use of other control methods have helped push agriculture away from a
more natural, balanced state.

Integrated Pest Management

IPM is the blending of all effective, economical, and environmentally-sound pest control
methods into a single but flexible approach to managing pests. Those who practice IPM
realize that it is neither possible nor economically feasible to eliminate all pests; instead
pest populations should be managed below economically damaging levels. Users of the
IPM approach recognize and understand the importance of the controls provided by
nature. When human intervention is necessary, the least invasive practices, such as plant
resistance, biological control, and cultural control, should be used because these are the
practices that fit best into sustainable agriculture. Highly disruptive or environmentally
damaging practices should be used only as a last resort. Chemical pesticides should be
used only when necessary, based upon frequent and routine monitoring of pest
populations. Natural enemy populations should also be monitored so that their impact on
pests can be determined. When pesticides are necessary, if possible, only those products
should be used that are not detrimental to natural enemies.
Integrated pest management is a dynamic and evolving practice. Specific management
strategies will vary from crop to crop, location to location, and year to year, based upon
changes in pest populations and their natural controls. As specific new approaches are
developed, these too can be incorporated into the program as appropriate. Modern pest
managers will be most effective if they are knowledgeable about their pests, beneficial
insects, and all of the control options available.

REFERENCES

https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/general-approaches-to-insect-control/

– Dan Mahr, University of Wisconsin – Madison

https://cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu/epp/Education/Study-Guide-Packets/APC-Core/APC-Unit1