[Copesan University] Out-of-the-Box Thinking Required

Most pest management professionals are fully prepared to deal with a wide range of insects, rodents and birds, but what happens when a tree frog, an earthworm or a slug becomes a pest? Or what if insects like grasshoppers or caterpillar hunters, which aren’t normally considered pests, have a population explosion and invade a facility?

While these aren’t everyday encounters, an unusual pest problem still requires a solution. In these situations, the solutions require the pest manager to go outside his or her normal realm of thinking to discover new and different ways to attack the odd pest.

For different perspectives, I’ve searched the Internet for new ideas, contacted colleagues and experts throughout the country who have dealt with these pests in a different environment and called universities for information.

For instance, when I was dealing with a tree frog problem, I discovered there is a frog in Hawaii that is considered a pest there. I was able to use that information as a resource.

When tackling an earthworm invasion, I talked with people who deal with turf because I know they do trials on different kinds of soil. I used their expertise to gain insight into how to control earthworms in the facility.

USE PESTICIDE ALTERNATIVES. To complicate matters, there are no pesticides specifically labeled for uncommon pests, which limits what actions can be taken.

In these cases, the technician usually needs to look almost exclusively for a non-chemical means of control. A lot of times, the solution is exclusion, and depending on the pest, it might be coming in from an unusual place.

For example, with the tree frogs, we didn’t know where they were coming into the facility. After investigation, we found that they were climbing up the outside walls and coming into the building where the roof and the walls meet. Then they were spending their time under the machinery in the plant.

FIND THE FOOD SOURCE. It isn’t always immediately apparent how these unusual pests are getting their food.

For instance, we’ve had a problem with plaster beetles, which are small beetles that typically feeds on fungus spores, in a number of facilities. At first glance, it didn’t look likely that fungus spores were present in the buildings that we were servicing.

But after we investigated, we found two instances where the plaster beetles were living in the roof of these structures. Both buildings had rubber roofs that leaked, and water was getting down to the wood underneath. Mold was growing on the wet wood, and the plaster beetles were living in and around that rotting wood. So we had to repair sections of the roofs to eliminate the problem.

The author is technical trainer for Ehrlich/Rentokil in Allentown, Pa. He can be reached at carne@giemedia.com.