How Do Pests Develop Pesticide Resistance?
The primary issue agriculture workers face today is a notorious uphill battle that only seems to get more complex. In pest control, you’re using science to combat nature from spreading disease, keep crops from being defiled, and even keep your home pest-free. Unfortunately, nature fights back in a brilliant way that forces pest control professionals to always look for a pivot. Pests can become immune to pesticides when used over the same population continuously. Basic biology dictates how a species will survive and adapt to survival. For a better understanding of pesticide resistance, it’s essential to know how they work.
Unfortunately, nature fights back in a brilliant way that forces pest control professionals to always look for a pivot. Pests can become immune to pesticides when used over the same population continuously. Basic biology dictates how a species will survive and adapt to survival.
To understand more about pesticide resistance, it’s essential to comprehend how they work.
Basics of Pesticides
Each insect species is unique in how it operates biologically, which means their reactions to pesticides may not be synonymous with each other. In addition, pesticides are in different classes depending on their chemical makeup. Some of them include: organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids
The list goes on, but even more specifically, a pesticide has a specific Mode of Action (MOA). MOA is how the pesticide affects the pest to kill or stunt its growth. The MOA is essential to understand when discussing pesticide resistance because it’s the variable that bugs overcome.
Cross-Resistance
Pests often are only exposed to one product that they become resistant to. Still, it is possible for them also to become resistant to more than one. This is known as becoming cross-resistant.
As if becoming resistant to one was already bad enough, pests can be resistant to more than one pesticide. Once one population becomes immune to one pesticide, it becomes easier for them to become immune to another.
Fortunately, it isn’t the most common that it happens, but there is room for concern when cross-resistance is achieved. A pest population must be substantial and out of control to be immune to multiple pesticides.
MOA and Pesticide Resistance
Pretend there is a colony in your backyard that doesn’t seem ever to go away no matter how many times you spray it. Then one day, you notice that the colony may have started to grow despite your spraying efforts; this is pesticide resistance.
When you treat a species with a pesticide, some inherently live based on their chemical makeup. These lucky winners will pass on their DNA to their offspring to possess the ability to be resistant to that specific pesticide.
Now that they’re resistant, they can pass it on to their offspring, and then soon, the colony is nearly immune to the pesticide, rendering it ineffective. This is what actual pesticide resistance is like and is a constant uphill battle pest professionals are always fighting.
How long does it take for a colony to become resistant to a pesticide?
For a whole colony to become resistant, that might seem like it would take a long time, but insect breeding cycles are vastly different from ours. Even most insect life cycles and development are different; it’s what makes insects, insects!
It’s easy for a colony to become immune when you have a shortened life span with quick breeding cycles that produce many offspring at once. Indeed, it’s not an overnight process, but it’s a process that can happen quickly.
How Prime Pest Solutions Fights Pesticide Resistance
Combatting a pest population but ensuring that the same pests don’t become resistant to the same products is quite the juggling act. Prime Pest Solutions takes an intelligent approach by implementing new techniques to prolong pesticide resistance.
Taking a few liberties for ourselves to do the job right, we first start by being surgical and useful with one treatment. Finding the source of the infestation will be the first crucial step because directly treating the source will increase the likelihood of irradiating the whole population of.
Typically, pesticide resistance is more likely to occur for pests that operate in high numbers, like ants rapidly. However, for occasional invaders like spiders, pesticide resistance isn’t something that should fully be worried about, though it is possible.
After finding the source, we will treat it directly with only the best treatment and then monitor the activity. If the activity seems to continue to be active, we can retreat to the area and see how they react. If activity still isn’t fully depleted. Then, we can introduce another technique to rotate a new product so that the pests don’t start to build up resistance.
We have been fighting pesticide resistance for a long time, which means we have plans to avoid it from ever happening. However, if you are concerned about a specific pest issue or your pest developing resistance to the products, contact us, and we’ll explain how to treat your home optimally!
