ONLINE ONLY: Using Chemicals and Pesticides in Food Plant Programs

ONLINE ONLY: CHEMICAL AND PESTICIDAL FOOD PLANT PROGRAMS

Insecticides and other pesticides comprise an important part of an IPM program. In fact, due to the nature of food manufacturing and the intense amount of pest pressure on food plants, it is often impossible to eliminate pests without the use of quality insecticides and professional applications.

Application equipment is also a critical component to effective pesticidal applications inside food plants. At certain times and for certain locations, insecticide applications inside food plants must be directed into specific habitats where insects may be hiding. Commonly this is in cracks and crevices or inside equipment, wall voids or in various hard-to-reach areas. Warehouses may require effective and powerful space treatments (ULD or “fogging”).

Pesticide applications in food plants can be categorized into two broad types of applications: residuals and non-residual applications. Both types are essential components of food plant IPM programs. Non-residual applications are those such as the use of pyrethrums to flush out insects hiding in a piece of manufacturing equipment or the use of ultra low dose treatment (ULD) to treat for flying insects in a portion of the warehouse. In both cases, the killing effect of the pesticide only last during the actual time of treatment and there is no pesticide killing residual left over.

On the other hand, residual pesticidal treatments are those that may last for days, weeks or months depending on the formulation applied. Examples of residual pesticide applications used in food plants include ant and cockroach baits, dusts and various active ingredients such as cyfluthrin applied as pressurized liquid applications. Following are a few common examples of typical residual and non-residual applications used for food plant pest management.

Residual Exterior Treatments:

· Use a residual perimeter insecticide along exterior and interior walls during the peak insect activity months of the spring and summer to help suppress insect populations and their ingress into plants. This powerful residual insecticide will eliminate the need to re-spray the same perimeter areas weekly, will save on labor input, as well as minimize the amount of pesticide applied to the plant’s exterior.

· Treat expansion joints at the foundation wall and exterior slab (low pressures of 15 psi or less, using a pin stream nozzle opening directed into the expansion joint). This type of application takes longer to conduct than a higher-pressure fan treatment of the foundation wall — ground junction area (i.e., a “band treatment”), but offers greater pest elimination.

· For ant control, new baits are available which are highly effective for many ant species common to warehouses and food plants built on large slabs. Baiting is most effective when ant infestations are located and entryways identified. Applying bait directly to foraging trails will increase the acceptance of the bait and allow for colony elimination.

· Baiting programs for fire ants must be carefully planned and well-implemented taking into consideration the local weather conditions. Unfortunately, fire ant control in the food industry is sometimes delegated to lawn maintenance crews whom simply treat mounds by pouring insecticide “drench” or dust treatments onto the visible mounds as the mounds become large. These types of treatments result in merely “harvesting” fire ants over the long term instead of eliminating or significantly suppressing the fire ant colonies. Fire ant treatments are most effective using a broadcast application in the infested areas. Monitoring is essential to determine ant pressure and re-application.

Interior Non-Residual Applications:

Non-residual pesticide applications are the most common method of applying pesticides inside food plants.

1. ULD Space Treatments (Fogging). Space treatments of food plants (also known as “fogging”) can be a useful supplement to total pest management programs. Space treatments are used to knock down flies and various flying and exposed crawling stored product pests at certain times of the year.