In our industry, there are two distinct types of mosquito jobs: one is “quick and dirty,” one is management over the long term.
Editor’s Note: The following was adapted from Techletter, a biweekly publication from Pinto & Associates, Mechanicsville, Md. To subscribe, visit www.techletter.com or call 301/884-3020
IPM is the best way to control any pest over the long term. But not every job is suited for IPM. Mosquito control is a good example. In our industry, there are two distinct types of mosquito jobs: one is “quick and dirty,” one is management over the long term. As a result, we have two different types of mosquito control.
A “one shot,” for lack of a better term, is when a customer calls on Wednesday because she is having an outdoor function on Saturday evening and the yard is loaded with mosquitoes. Maybe it’s a party or a wedding in a backyard or maybe it’s a church function. No matter the occasion, the customer doesn’t want to hear about Integrated Pest Management, monitoring, source reduction and the like. She wants you to “get rid of those mosquitoes” so guests are not bitten on Saturday. This is a spray job to kill adult mosquitoes, pure and simple (although this customer is a hot prospect for a mosquito IPM program in the future).
There are two effective ways to apply insecticides to kill adult mosquitoes. In traditional “fogging,” you apply an aerosol of very fine insecticide droplets using a thermal fogger or ULV cold aerosol generator. The goal is to spray so that the insecticide contacts the adult mosquitoes.
More commonly in our industry, we apply insecticide treatment of a residual insecticide onto mosquito resting areas, most typically in and on vegetation, where they land on treated surfaces and pick up a lethal dose of insecticide. This is often called a mosquito “barrier treatment.”
The most effective way to apply a barrier treatment into vegetation is with a powered mist blower. However, the application also can be made with a power sprayer, backpack sprayer and even a regular compressed air sprayer. When treating vegetation it is critical to get the insecticide residue onto the underside of leaves where mosquitoes most commonly rest.
A wide range of insecticides are suitable for mosquito barrier treatments. Additionally, some EPA-exempt products also have been used for this type of treatment.
One-shot mosquito control jobs are by their nature short term and only partially effective, ranging from 50 to 90 percent reductions depending on the field study. Limitations include: 1) not all mosquito resting areas are treatable or reachable; 2) it is difficult to get complete coverage inside thick vegetation; and 3) mosquitoes can fly in from untreated sites.
The most effective way to control mosquitoes effectively over the entire mosquito season is through IPM. Briefly, a mosquito IPM program contains these essentials:
Inspections and surveillance. IPM programs for mosquitoes require regular inspections. Mostly, inspectors should be looking for active breeding sites (with mosquito larvae, eggs or pupae) or potential breeding sites, but also for adults (biting counts, traps and resting mosquitoes), potential offsite problems and sensitive areas.
Source reduction. All mosquitoes need water to breed. Long-term effective control usually requires a reduction in the number and attractiveness of mosquito-breeding sites…called “source reduction” in mosquito control work. Source reduction includes removal of mosquito-breeding containers, elimination of standing water, and, in rare cases, modification to bodies of water (elimination of organic debris, ditching and draining).
Vegetation management. An often overlooked component of mosquito IPM, vegetation management, can greatly reduce a site’s attractiveness to mosquitoes. Yards with lots of overgrown vegetation, weeds and brush provide many mosquito resting sites. Customers need to remove weeds and brush, thin ornamental plantings, trim tall grasses, etc., to lessen mosquito pressure.
Larviciding. For standing water that cannot be altered or drained, larvicides are the key control tool. They kill the larvae or they prevent larval development so that biting adults are not produced. They are either applied to standing water, or to a site that will flood later (to control floodwater mosquitoes). The common larvicides are methoprene, B.t.i. and thin surface oils.
Other components of mosquito IPM programs are biological control (primarily mosquito fish), mosquito traps, adulticiding (the last resort, often indicating a program failure somewhere) and, of course, ongoing education and communication with the customer.
The authors are well-known industry consultants and co-owners of Pinto & Associates.
The awards, sponsored by BASF Pest Control Solutions, recognize a trio of standout service professionals in the residential, commercial and termite categories. Nomination deadline is July 18.
The family had a beekeeper install a hive in front of their home to re-affirm its commitment to pollinator health.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In recent years, pest control operators have been re-affirming their commitment to be protectors of pollinator health in variety of ways.
Jay Besheer, president of Gunter Pest Management, and his wife, Pam, decided to have a beekeeper install a beehive in the front yard of their home they've lived for 29 years to promote and encourage their community to take part in the protection and re-population of honeybees. The Besheers asked permission from their neighbors to make sure there were no seeded fears in bees floating around their homes.
"We've been in business for 67 years and take our role as pest control leaders in our community very seriously. We want to be known for more than just the elimination of pests. Our company has studied and become very well versed in the low bee population over the last few years and have worked hard to educate and take a stand for the protection of our bees in efforts to increase pollination. It's important that our company educates our customers that not all insects and bugs are harmful and that we must work hard to protect certain species against extinction."
The goal is to disrupt egg production by tampering with the reproductive events that follow its blood meal.
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Mosquito peak season coincides with summer, which is this true also of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that spreads dengue fever, chikungunya, Zika fever, and yellow fever virus. To develop its eggs, Aedes aegypti requires a blood meal. One way to control the spread of the diseases this mosquito spreads is to disrupt egg production by tampering with the reproductive events that follow its blood meal.
A team of scientists at the University of California, Riverside has explored this at the molecular level. They focused on microRNAs, small regulatory RNA molecules, which play a critical role in mosquito egg maturation. Specifically, they studied microRNA expression in the Aedes aegypti fat body—the metabolic center that plays a key role in reproduction.
Since proper functioning of the fat body is essential for the development of the female reproductive system after a blood meal, identifying which miRNAs are important to fat body functions, and what specific genes they target, can help design ways to manipulate the levels of microRNA or their targets, affect their interactions, disrupt mosquito reproduction, and thus prevent the spread of diseases the mosquitoes transmit.
The researchers observed five major microRNA expression peaks within a 48-hour period following the female mosquito’s blood meal, indicating that these miRNAs, in turn, may be establishing significant changes in expression of key genes during this period in the fat body.
Fedor V. Karginov, an assistant professor of cell biology and neuroscience, co-led the research team along with Alexander S. Raikhel, a distinguished professor of entomology at UC Riverside.
Says Raikhel: “Now that we know these genes, we are a step closer to controlling the spread of Aedes aegypti by disrupting a key process in the reproductive cycle: egg production.”
Similar approaches to disrupt egg production should be applicable to other mosquito species.
“If the same microRNAs and their mRNA targets are involved in the egg development, which is likely, interfering with them should give similar results,” Karginov says.
For more information, please visit: https://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/44755
Barry Alto is using a grant to develop an inexpensive, user-friendly and rapid diagnostic Zika test.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences entomologist will use a $200,000 grant from the Florida Department of Health to improve tests for the detection of Zika virus.
In 2016, Florida saw 1,272 cases of Zika, which is usually associated with mild symptoms, although severe symptoms may also occur, including Guillain-Barré syndrome and birth defects in babies, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 256 were locally acquired. So far this year, four more cases have been reported, all travel-related.
Barry Alto, a UF/IFAS assistant professor of medical entomology, said scientists need better diagnostic tools to detect Zika virus to meet challenges to public health. He is working with Steven Benner at Firebird Biomolecular Sciences LLC to develop methods they hope should take about an hour – far less time than current testing methods. Existing methods require specialized equipment and highly trained personnel, so samples must be transported to specialized laboratory facilities to perform the tests.
Alto will work with Benner, a former UF chemistry distinguished professor and founder of Gainesville-based Firebird Biomolecular Sciences LLC. Together, they plan to develop an inexpensive, user-friendly and rapid diagnostic Zika test.
“The project has the potential to impact the health of Floridians,” said Alto, a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach, Florida. “It can improve surveillance by advanced warning of Zika transmission through tests of mosquito samples, allow for strategic deployment of limited resources by mosquito control to reduce incidence and prevalence of Zika and improve health care to Floridians by rapid diagnosis in human samples.”
Alto and Benner will combine current Zika-detection techniques with innovations in synthetic biology. Those include AEGIS (artificially expanded genetic information system), which allows pathogen nucleic acid-targeted tests to be ultra clean and SAMRS (self-avoiding molecular recognition systems) that allow ease of multiplexing of pathogen nucleic acid-targeted test so other arboviruses can be detected in addition to Zika virus.
During the one-year project, scientists will travel to Florida’s public health service labs to demonstrate the technique and to test their method to detect Zika and other arboviruses.
“We are interested in getting feedback from individuals involved in mosquito control and public health,” Alto said.
Zika can be transmitted when a female mosquito, most likely an infected Aedes aegypti, bites a human. The virus can cause birth defects, including microcephaly, or a smaller-than-normal head, in babies as well as Guillain-Barré syndrome, a condition in which the immune system attacks your nervous system. Currently there is no vaccine available for Zika virus.
To try to avoid mosquito bites, UF/IFAS Extension faculty urge people to stay indoors or wear long-sleeve shirts and pants if they’re outdoors, especially during the day, when mosquitoes that might transmit the Zika virus are more likely to bite. They also urge people to apply mosquito repellent containing DEET and remove mosquito-breeding habitats by removing water from containers because that’s where mosquitoes lay their eggs and the immature stages develop.
(Caption: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences entomologist Barry Alto will use a $200,000 grant from the Florida Department of Health to collaborate with a former UF chemistry distinguished professor to improve tests for the detection of Zika virus. The virus can be transmitted to humans by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, depicted in the photo above.)