Infinity Pest Control Ents. is now shifting from Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to Assessment-based Pest Management (APM).
Integrated Pest Management was developed for agriculture, not for urban. In the 1940s and 50s, agriculture growers got into the habit of applying DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) on a calendar basis. What happened in a relatively short time, is they had wiped out all-natural enemies for the pest they were trying to kill and they had selected for that pest that was genetically not susceptible to DDT. Resistance was the whole issue. In the 1970s, IPM was developed as a resistance management technique, NOT a Pest Control technique. The idea was to reduce the pest to an economically manageable level. The whole idea was that the farmer would go out and survey his crops rather than just making a pesticide application, they look at the number of pests that were there, make a determination as to how many pests if they were that many today would they have it harvest time and was there enough that was cause damage to the crop so that they would lose money. And then they could make economic decisions whether it was worth their time and money to make a pesticide application or whether there were so few bugs that they didn't need to bother with it. And that's what IPM was all about. Resistance management by not doing calendar-based applications and going out there and assessing the pest problem to see if whether they needed to make an application, whether it was worth their time and money or not. Somehow, that got copied and pasted into the urban environment. And this whole idea of reducing pests to a manageable level? How many bedbugs would your mother like to live with? That doesn't suit us and the assessment part seems to have drifted away entirely. A lot of definition of IPM for the urban environment talks about reduced toxicity or non-toxic methods for treating insects? Everything is safe that we are allowed to apply during these days. It just doesn't make sense for us to have non-toxic or low toxicity that is based on residence sanitation. In agriculture, the farmer doesn't ask the trees to produce fruit or leaves to avoid pests. They go out there and deal with the situation as it is.
Assessment-based Pest Management (APM). It gives our clients some thought that something is going to be assessed. That they're going to get some numbers by sending photographs. They need to understand what we are up against and why we can't just spend 3 minutes and take care of the problem. We want to give them some documentation on before-treatment-after and so that we know whether we have accomplished the ELIMINATION, NOT manageable levels, elimination that we need to achieve. Without resident cooperation, we can get rid of them.
Source:
Dini Miller
Professor
Urban Pest Management
The Pest Posse Interview
Pesticide Application vs Pest Control (Live July 5, 2021)
Dini Miller received her undergraduate degree from UCLA in 1991 where she majored in Geography/Ecosystems. She completed her Masters (1994) and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Florida (1998) where she studied Urban Entomology, specifically German cockroach biology and aggregation behavior. Dr. Miller has won numerous awards for her work in urban entomology including the pest control industry’s Crown Leadership Award, the Entomological Society of America’s (Eastern Branch) Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension, and the Gamma Sigma Delta Award of Merit in Extension and most recently the 2012 Virginia Tech University Alumni Award for Excellence in Extension.
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